World Domination 102
You can’t stay in WD 101 forever.
More tips and moral support for getting in, getting ahead, or just staying in the game.
Date: April 14, 2014
Categories: Life
Wednesday, 8 May 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
You can’t stay in WD 101 forever.
More tips and moral support for getting in, getting ahead, or just staying in the game.
Date: April 14, 2014
Categories: Life
“WD 101 is not a prerequisite for this class. It is intended to be taken together with Mad Science 150. Please select both a lecture and a lab section. Ask your advisor for further details.”
Oh, you’re already in the lab section. That’s why you need the tutorials.
I’m not sure where exactly this goes, but can we please enact plan Mostly Harmless sometime soon? It seems like at least one or two countries are in an ever more desperate need for a Muserly overhaul.
I’m taking a graduate-level CS course this semester as an elective, because I wasn’t sure if I’d need another elective for my degree (I don’t) and the topic seemed the most interesting of the offered CS classes.
Today after that class, the professor asked me to stay after so he can talk to me. He then tried to convince me that I should go to grad school.
Some things he said:
-I can probably do better than staying here for my graduate work
-If I do decide to stay here, they’ll offer me a TA position (he’s the head of the graduate program, so I guess he has that power? I’m not sure)
-If I do decide to stay here, the Masters degree is 30 credits, 3 of which I already have, 3 of which I might be able to complete next semester, and 6 of which are optionally a thesis which can be completed while working (with an option for another +3 as an independent study the semester before the thesis).
-If I don’t see any courses I can take in the schedule, they are willing to make up independent studies for me.
I don’t know if I want to go to grad school, but I will admit the idea of having a graduate degree kind of appeals to me, and he was flattering me quite a bit. He made it sound like I’d be able to finish the degree after a semester of classes in Spring 2015 and a thesis in Summer/Fall 2015, which honestly isn’t too bad, although I have my doubts that enough classes I need will be offered to make it work the way he said it would.
Here are my concerns:
-if I’m going to bother to get a graduate degree, I think I want it to be from a school with name recognition, which my SUNY doesn’t have.
-My partner will be starting grad school in Fall 2015, hopefully in Connecticut. At that point, I want to be doing something which earns money, because I know he isn’t going to be, and I want to be financially independent from my parents after getting a degree.
-I’m not sure a Masters without a PhD is even worth anything in my field. My school does not offer a PhD in Computer Science, which means transferring again, and figuring out where to pack up and move my life to again, which I am not thrilled about. (On the other hand, I could go for an online or part-time PhD in the same location as my job, which means that this might not be as bad as I fear.)
-I’m not sure I want to spend more of my life in school (another year for the Masters, at least, another three after that for a PhD). I like the idea of working.
-If I go to a “better” school, then I am concerned about stress culture/lack of academic support, because those have been huge problems for me in the past.
This is not my area of expertise at all, but it’s kind of my father’s, and I remember him talking at some point about how it was almost better to only have an undergraduate degree in computer science because graduate degrees overqualified you for a lot of things. Just another point to consider.
I think you said it yourself- you like the idea of a grad degree, but grad school might not be right for you now.
You can do better than SUNY.
Lizzie – I’ve heard that before too, but only from people on the internet. My parents (who both have doctorates in engineering, and who both teach at least part-time at universities – so not inexperienced, but not unbiased either) seem to think that degree creep will be a problem if I don’t get a graduate degree of some kind, although they also think my best path to a graduate degree is to do it part-time while I’m working. They’ve found a couple online/part-time programs, so I guess I’ll evaluate my offers this fall…
Vendaval – Thanks for the vote of confidence! I don’t want to get too conceited just yet though — my first thought after “name recognition” was “maybe if I’m working in NYC I can get a degree from Columbia or Yale,” and while that’s an option, I don’t want to assume anything about my chances at an Ivy just yet.
My dad’s a professor of computer science and is undergraduate student adviser for the computer engineering department at A&M, so that’s where he’s coming from.
Another update:
I submitted an abstract back in March to present a poster at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration about some of the work I did at at last summer’s internship, and decisions were emailed out today.
It was accepted!! (Although just barely, and for the general session but not the student research competition)
I am excited, but also scared. I need to have my poster prepared by July, and then I need to have a copy printed and take it on a plane with me so I can stand and talk in front of it in October. I’m hopeful that when I return for my internship on Monday they will let me take more screenshots of the tool I made for them, because I legally couldn’t save my own copy and right now I have one accidental blurry low-resolution picture…. (please let them not have deleted or lost it PLEASE)
Congratulations
That’s awesome (and well-deserved)! Congratulations.
I feel unprepared for acquiring or living in an apartment, but I have few other options, and thus my housing situation for next year is in an unsettling amount of doubt.
First, some background. Continuing to live with my parents is not an option: they are over a hundred miles from the university I attend. Nor is student housing: my application was wait-listed, and my university (UC Berkeley) does not guarantee dorm space for people beyond sophomore year (which I’ve just finished, for better or for worse). I can’t rely on the wait-list space opening up, because rumor has it we’re handling the biggest incoming freshman class ever next year.
Additional background: I may have already done things wrong. I was advised by practically everyone to lock down housing in March. I did not see how this was possible*: nobody listed anything on Craigslist, Padmapper, or any of the other conventional rental advertisement sites until a few weeks ago. This was the week before finals. During the two weeks that most listings were available, I also had to deal with exams and papers. This made me less productive both academically and in the house-hunting arena than I would otherwise have been. I found something in a student rooming house last week — unfortunately, it may have been snapped up while I was taking four exams. The outcome is still in doubt and I’m waiting for the landlady’s reply while searching for other options.
I’m sure I’ll be able to find something — however, if it turns out to be an overpriced, collapsing room shared with three other people, I know I’m going to spend much of junior year miserable and unable to cope. Junior year at university is taxing enough. It’s frustrating because I fear my over-pickiness earlier on is going to force me to settle now. If I’d snapped up one of the places I looked at earlier instead of dithering, I wouldn’t be in this fix. And this isn’t even taking into account other issues with finding housing — I have no credit history, for example, and I’ve been unemployed since last fall so I’m going to need my parents to cosign things.
tl;dr: Inability to multitask + total unfamiliarity with situation + no clear procedures to follow = kryptonite for POSOC’s brain. Kokonspirators please advise.
(*I later learned that most people find apartments “through a friend” — one who is moving out at the end of the year, or has found a space already. I have few friends in the Bay Area, and all of the possible housemates have already found situations. Continuing this footnote would be more appropriate to Rants and Plaints, but I can’t find it.)
POSOC,
You’ll find it if you log in.
Logged in at the moment: I found the 2013 version, which is closed to comment, but nothing more recent.
Strange. It’s right there: post 14025.
Found it: thanks.
Update: place probably secured, Kokonspiracy back on track.
Congrats. I remember roaming the streets of Berkeley (nearly 30 years ago!) in a state of panic knowing I would *never* find a place. And I remember looking at passersby and thinking how lucky they were to have a place to live — and that they probably didn’t even realize how lucky they were. It sounds like things haven’t changed a lot! (I did find a place too :))
I got accepted to an early college program!! I get to skip senior year and get college credits instead!!
Congratulations, that’s amazing!
Wow, that’s incredible!
Addendum: It’s a new program my county is starting in the fall, open to all rising juniors and seniors in the county, and they only accepted 52 people for next year. And I managed to be one of them.
Congratulations, Fireh! I can’t wait to hear all about it!
I saw a site today called 50 Ways to Get a Job that has specific advice for many stages of the job discovery and search process (Starting, Finding My Purpose, Overwhelmed, Learning New Skills, Networking, Stuck, Applying for Jobs, Interviewing, Happy). I especially like that it has lots of ways to get going again if you feel like you’ve reached a dead end or a scary-confusing patch. It seems very useful for World Domination.
Wow, thank you past-Cat’s Meow, for sharing this resource for your future self to find when it was exactly what I was looking for.
Middle College update: Fall classes have been scheduled. They’re only letting us take four classes [12 credit hours] this first [experimental] semester, but all things considered it seems I’ll have a productive semester anyhow [especially with my extracurricular classes for music school*] with General Psychology 101, Public Speaking, Music Appreciation, and World Literature 1650-present**!
Job hunt update: I had my first interview today for a part-time job as a hostess in a restaurant. I think it went well, but I won’t know for sure until they call me, which will be Tuesday evening at the earliest. The waiting game begins.
((*I’m going to brag for a bit and mention that I got a full music scholarship for clarinet from a precollege program at a local university, which covers music history classes, music theory classes, chamber music ensemble coaching, orchestra, and private lessons !!! There are people who come from out of state to play with these ensembles and take lessons with the teachers here and I’m getting almost 4K in my scholarship to go there as one of the ~30 or so high school students from basically the entire state to get this particular scholarship.))
((**Now I’m going to brag a bit more and mention that I’m taking 3rd Year English, seems my ACT scores exempt me from freshman and sophomore English. Although I am a bit miffed that my AP credit is now rendered redundant, that is entirely overpowered by my vain pride in the fact that I’m taking the same English class next year as my friends who are actual juniors at university. /gleeful cackling/))
Fun! Those brags are well-deserved.
Congrats on all these fantastic achievements!
Still poking around grad schools. I want to go into museums for sure, I think, but I’d also like to go into explaining math to the public. The University of British Columbia’s education department has both math and museum education degrees but I dunno what I’d apply for! Probably museum, I suppose. It’d be neat to take some math classes as well.
I’m trying to plot a rough course for myself for the rest of college. Right now, I’ve just about decided I’ll aim for a biology major – I like it, I’m good at it, it doesn’t necessarily determine my future career path if my interests change later, and deciding frees me up to take classes that won’t go towards anything if I’m confident in a solid plan there. After factoring in the number of upper-division classes I have to take for that, I’m left with a certain number of spots for other classes. Now I’m facing the age-old problem of not having enough time in college for all the classes I wish I could take: particularly Chinese, history, computer science and math, and physics/relativity, not to mention a semester of study abroad.
I feel like Chinese and study abroad are big potential break points. I’m currently registered for Chinese next semester. I took a year of it senior year of high school, but I’ll have to start all over, not that that’s really a bad thing since I don’t remember everything. I really love learning languages (I would study others if I had the time) and my school’s Chinese classes are supposed to be great, plus knowing some Chinese is a really great skill to have in the modern world. Still, I feel like the payoff only comes if I take at least two or three years of it, or else I’ll learn a year and forget most of it like I have now. Presenting this as a choice between 0 and 6 semesters makes me wonder if I would be better off doing something else…
It also ties into studying abroad since my school has a habit of offering those classes only in the fall or spring. If I spend a semester of my junior year abroad, my Chinese progression is messed up, and I can only complete two years with a year-long gap in the middle. However, because of my history with Spanish (immersion school, moved, had a hard time getting it for a while afterwards) I feel like it’s really important for me to immerse myself in a Spanish-speaking country at some point in my life. But given everything else, is that a semester abroad? A summer abroad? A shorter trip with my younger brother? And then what about other things I would miss out on over the summer, like internships or research?
I’ve been trying to go with the flow and take whatever interests me, and I did that a lot my first year (9 classes in 8 departments). But now I feel like I’m facing some complicated, interlocking choices and I’m having trouble sorting out what I really want. Any advice from those of you who have been here before?
I don’t know if I’m all that qualified to advise! However: it does seem like some kind of Spanish immersion is important to you. Maybe you could try looking for some kind of internship or research position relevant to your field, in a Spanish-speaking country? The job could be in English or Spanish but if you were living there for several weeks or months, I imagine it would be quite easy to be immersed in the local culture and language. I don’t know if those are hard to come by… Otherwise any kind of summer travelling would probably do the trick; I imagine you’re quite fluent already.
Could you maybe do a semester abroad for Chinese? You seem quite keen on learning it, and I admire you for that, it’s such a hard language! Once you’ve graduated and are on your own, it’s probably easier to revisit a familiar foreign language than to learn a new one entirely independently, so I think college is a really good time to start Chinese. Especially if your college has good Chinese classes, as you say – and if the classes are good, you might be more motivated to continue for more than a year.
Just my two cents, the best is of course to choose what you think you really want to do!
You could always continue your Chinese learning in the summer after college with a program like Beloit College’s CLS. You could do research in a Spanish-speaking country. A fullbright in a lab in Mexico perhaps? I’d see what opportunities are out there at your college and see what you find yourself yearning for. Whatever you don’t do now, you can probably fit in later somehow. I do agree that it is much harder to start a language from scratch when you are out of college, but there are ways to go to China or Spanish-speaking countries after college. Also, Spanish-speaking countries probably also have Chinese and biology classes.
Keep in mind that there is time to do things after college too. CLS and Fullbrights are post-graduation things (though CLS can be done at anytime from high school to adulthood).
Thank you both for your advice!
I’m going to email my adviser to ask her advice about study abroad messing up Chinese language progression (she’s a Chinese professor, conveniently). There have got to be people before who have been in similar boats. Once school gets back in session, I’ll talk with the study abroad office about programs that might have biology or Chinese – or history or computer science, or any of those other classes I think I’m interested in. I’ll also try to remember that I have a lot of life ahead of me to learn and experience things and not worry too far ahead!
I mailed out my graduation application to the school last Wednesday! December 2014, here I come! I am not sure if they have received it yet.
Also, my online class ended one (1) day ago and I have already made a color-coded spreadsheet with links to nine different software engineering job applications with companies that have offices in New York and various information about my application status with them, questions I want to ask at interviews, info about the companies, etc. There is a fine line between being rightfully prepared and being neurotic and obsessive, and I am walking it. Right now my top choice is possibly a cloud startup my friend at the hackerspace works for, but I’m not sure if I’m just enamored with the concept of being their first female software engineer and I’m not sure if that will actually be fun and give me a chance to make a difference at the company and in the world, or if it’ll be terrible and I’ll get harassed or have my work not taken seriously.
so I called the office I mailed the application to and they were like “since your advisor didn’t sign it we’re mailing it back to you, but you can resubmit it in the fall and we’ll accept it then.” the application is due the first week back to school? and my advisor is currently in another country and not responding to emails? but I will get it in later if that’s what it takes.
also yesterday morning I applied to Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. (i.e. the large companies that a) I expect will take some time to get back to me and b) I don’t have to write cover letters for. although I did have to email my contact at Google and my friend who’s interning at Microsoft, so…)
phone screen w/one of those aforementioned large companies in an hour or so and I’m kind of really really nervous? haven’t heard back from the other two, nor have I heard anything from the four additional places I applied to this past Sunday. I wrote them really nice cover letters too, so I hope I hear from them soon.
Good luck!
thanks!
it went pretty well, aside from me not really being able to hear him that clearly. The next step is me sending a list of my availability over the next week (done, hope I don’t have to miss too much work for it… planning to leave an hour early and claim I have a doctor’s appointment if it comes to that) so I can do what he called a “45 minute phone screen” but what I expect is a rigorous technical interview where I will have little room for error. I don’t feel prepared to do a rigorous technical interview on a week’s notice… time to hit the books…
My quartet’s going to be performing on npr
*squeeeee*
Whoa! That is awesome! Can we listen? Let us know the details when you know!
we got confirmation that this is actually happening – we’ll be performing music for the live taping of between two and four episodes of “Says you” in early september, which will be broadcast nationally. Not sure yet of the broadcast dates, and we need to figure out what we’re playing…
oh my god that is legitimately a huge deal wow i’m so happy for you!! definitely let is know so we can listen to you omg
This may be the start of the Glittering Career.
Saw this thread in “Recent Comments”, ignored it because I assumed it was… okay, I don’t really know what I assumed it was, probably some sort of creative writing thing I guess (I have realized that creative writing is not exactly my forte and I should stick to academic writing).
Anyway, I’ve now taken a look at this and realized that hey, this applies to me! So I’ve decided that next summer I will be applying to work at several different biotech companies/startups — I’ve discussed this with the grad student I currently work with at my lab, and he agrees that this is a Good Idea (he is aiming to graduate within a year and then work at a bio company himself)! The challenging part of that, I fear, will be my grades. I’m not really very good at studying (still… haha *twitch*), and I took extremely competitive classes for the last couple of years, so my grades kind of tanked. I’m above a 3.0, which is good, but I’m worried that among other Stanford student *cough*pre-med*cough* applicants my GPA will not be terribly stellar or impressive. I guess I do have an extensive amount of lab experience going for me (and, most likely, the good graces of a Stanford professor and grad student as well as — hopefully — my adviser and/or a professor this fall), so. Hopefully I can work at an actual, real live company next year!
P.S. oh god I’m going to be a junior and what do I do with my life after college??? I think I mentioned this elsewhere but I’m planning on getting a 5-year combined master’s/bachelor’s degree but do I go to grad school??? go to work??? do I even have to think about this yet??? people have been asking me and aaaaaa what do
the plan was always grad school before but I think I just took that for granted because I wanted to “beat” my parents, who both have MBAs, but honestly grad school seems a little depressing and not terribly worth it if I don’t want to stay in academia and I think it might be better to get a somewhat low-level position in a company and then work my way up from there than work for 4-6 years to start at only a slightly higher level and meanwhile live off of ramen???
My first actual technical interview for a full time job is today! I wish I had heard about it earlier than Tuesday… (they sent the email to my pre-transferring university account, despite me saying “don’t use that account” at literally every step of the way both this year and last year when I applied for an internship. Come on, Google.)
Anyway, I ran through pretty much my entire data structures textbook over the past week, plus skimming relevant parts of a PDF of a coding interview practice book. I wish I’d had time to go through my object-oriented books, and I wish I’d had time to do a practice interview with someone (anyone). I honestly think this interview will be as far as I get – past experience upholds this viewpoint. But I’ve done what I can and all that’s left is hoping I get an interviewer who values things I’m good at. (And wishing I had a better desk chair – I cleaned off my desk so I could use my external monitor for the coding portion, but it kind of hurts my wrists since the chair is so low. It’s the only non-folding chair in the apartment, alas.)
If you don’t mind feeling like a six year old in piano lessons, sit on a telephone book / textbook?
So, Dodecahedron, how did it go?
I ended up sitting on a pillow instead of a textbook, which helped, I think – thanks Lizzie for the inspiration!
The interview itself could have gone better, but I guess it also could have gone much worse. My interviewer was friendly, at least, and easy to hear/understand over the phone. I wish it hadn’t been at 4:30pm my time, I work better in the mornings, but that’s impossible to get when the interviewers start at 10am Pacific time and I’m in Eastern. He asked me some things I really should have brushed up on more (e.g. talking about things I would have changed about a project I’ve worked on before, a technical question about a Java keyword I don’t use much) but I only had two days notice so I can sort of forgive myself for not getting through the additional textbooks I meant to read first or doing a practice interview with similar questions. The coding half of the interview didn’t go as well as I thought it would, I thought it would be something I could use a clever trick of the right data structure and work quickly through, but I couldn’t think of a good data structure and ended up, after 20 min of second-guessing myself at every line, with code that had a very very slow runtime complexity. At least I was able to talk about why it would be slow.
Anyway I don’t have high hopes, but I did the best I could given the circumstances, and I didn’t completely bomb it so we’ll see if I hear anything back.
Another phone screen today, for a small NYC company which I really like. Fingers crossed!
Also, haven’t heard anything back yet from Google, and beginning to panic. If I don’t hear anything by tomorrow afternoon I’ll email. Wondering about the no news/good news correlation.
so I got an offer from a company! it is not the company that I think I want to work for most, or even second most, but it is for a significant amount of money* and has a deadline for response in five days.
I’m frantically emailing the other companies I’ve interviewed with and asking them if they can speed up their process. One got back to me right away, and says we can do a phone call tomorrow and in-person on Thursday if that goes well. (I don’t actually need to attend classes on Thursday, right? I mean, I already went to those ones today…)
*to be honest, I have zero frame of reference for what the amount of money you can make in a year as a software engineer translates to buying in real life. So I’m just trying to get as high a number as possible, I guess?
Hmm, well, I am certainly not a Real Person With Money, but as a starting point for determining how much money “money” really means, I guess just start by looking up housing prices in your area? For example, here in the Bay Area $2K/month for one person is a good rough estimate. And then maybe from there create a rough budget, always rounding up? Maybe that can help you get a grasp on how much money you need to survive, though just aiming for the highest possible number is also a valid approach I suppose.
2k a month?! For just rent or for everything? Man, I knew the bay area was expensive but I didn’t realize how much. (for reference, my rent in a small Midwestern city is $454 a month.)
I had to re-check because $500/month seemed so low / $2000 seemed so high, but with just a quick scan of Craigslist it looks like $2000/month for one person is a little high but not unreasonable. My friend is living in East Palo Alto for the summer and has a rent of $1900/month I believe. (It’s a little ridiculous, but yeah. Gentrification, man.)
Also, I have no idea where utilities are factored in. Probably included in the $2000. Food is definitely not included though.
… Guess I shouldn’t go to grad school there. I could never afford it.
Grad school — in a techie or fuzzy field? I mean obviously it would be easier in a techie field, because you’re getting a stipend (and I know plenty of grad students who get along just fine, albeit living a little frugally), but grad students do manage to live here, even fuzzies. Especially if you go to a private school that has funding. I dunno. Do more research before housing costs put you off, I guess.
I have no idea what a “fuzzy” field is. I’d hope that whatever field one goes to grad school in is something one feels “warm fuzzies” for occasionally, but I know all fields are often a lot of hard work. Hard work isn’t fuzzy.
But no, I wouldn’t be going into computer science, if that’s what you’re saying.
Sorry, Stanford lingo — “techie” is just any STEM field, and “fuzzy” is just any humanities field. Neither are derogatory, just shorthand. What I have heard is that techie grad students get a stipend, while fuzzy grad students don’t.
Ah. While I’m on board with trying to get more people to see STEM as a viable option/not scary (especially math. I love math and want more people to see the fun areas of it) I resent things like calling humanities “fuzzy” as it makes it sound like it is an easy thing to study and doesn’t involve work. It is true that STEM fields are more likely to get funding than social sciences/humanities, I’ve found there is still some funding and TA-ships for the social science programs. (Which is good, as I don’t know how I’d do grad school without financial aid.)
Though I do share with roommates, I know of friends who have similar rents on their own. So my standard is 500, with 400 being good, 300 being very good, 600 being a little expensive, 700 being rather expensive, 800 being this better be a nice place, 900 and up being “You’re probably someone who has settled into a full time job that you’ll have for a while”.
I live in a college town, and pay a premium for an apartment that’s a short walk to campus. 2000/mo isn’t impossibly unreasonable in my mind – it’s a lot, sure, but it’s also not so much more than if it was just me paying for the 2-bedroom that I live in now (& share costs here with 2 others, but… the Bay Area is a major city and my town is not.)
I suppose. I’m still going to look for 500 rent wherever I go, whether that be with roommates or not, as I don’t know how much more I could afford.
2000/mo may not be an impossible amount to manage to pay for rent, but it is a huge amount of money to try and come up with for rent, and imho, a ridiculously large sum to charge for a months rent, unless the place is super fancy and not just your average run of the mill apartment complex
Rent in my college town, I’m paying just under $600 for 1/2 of a two bedroom apartment, including all of my utilities. I think the base rent rate w/o utilities at my particular complex, is about $500/mo. I have a friend who lives in a complex pretty much on campus (it’s across the street from one of the res halls), and the two bedroom she’s renting, I think is still under $1000/mo.
One bedroom apartments in my college town, probably run about 700-800/mo, if I were to guestimate.
And even back home where cost of living is higher than it is here, when my sister and her husband were looking at apartments, they ran about $1000/mo–which is a price I’m already balking at when I was looking at costs of apartments for after I move home upon graduation, given that my dad is not going to let me live at home for the rest of my life. $2000/mo for a one bedroom? Not unless I’ve got a sugar daddy or several roommates living in my one bedroom.
Well, salaries in the Bay Area are also adjusted for the cost of living expenses, I believe.
That would help, provided you are not a student (or are a student with a salary)/
That seems pretty typical for most places in the midwest, but if you want to get on either coast it’s going to be a lot more expensive. Friends of mine in New Haven / New York / Boston are generally paying $1k+ for shared apartments.
Places where exciting things are happening tend to have high rents, in my experience. But they also tend to offer high wages, and they’re the best places for gaining experience and having adventures. I think they’re worth it.
Hey, great minds think alike! I think the Bay Area is definitely one of those places that’s worth living in, even for just a short while. Leaving Minnesota for California has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my [admittedly quite short] life thus far.
Exactly. I highly recommend places that are unique and think that they’re the center of the universe. A strong strain of self-celebration is usually a good sign. And it’s best to tackle them while you’re young and strong and flexible enough to bounce back when they slap you around, as such places sometimes will. When you’ve had enough adventures, you can always find some unambitious, nondescript place to raise hollyhocks or children or do whatever else you decide to do instead.
But unique doesn’t have to mean huge. Some people like huge cities with a million people, and some like small cities with a hundred thousand. And that is okay. Trying out different sized places would be awesome if you can! Me, I think I prefer the middle-sized cities, somewhere around 500,000 people.
I think you can also find places with lots of exciting things happening at cheaper prices if you look at places experiencing things like the rust belt revival. Cleveland, for example, is dirt cheap to live in and is in the middle of a massive urban renewal campaign. It has fantastic art and culture – two very good art museums, one of the best orchestras in the world, a great chamber music series, and a lot of non-classical musicians come through here also. A lot of young startups have set up in the city because of the low cost of living, and so there’s a ton of really high-quality but reasonably priced restaurants and bars aimed at young professionals – 20-30yearolds – from a lot of the TV chefs. Seriously great food. There’s good state parks in the area. And you can afford to live in a nice place with lots of space instead of squeezing five people into one bedroom.
(plus all the parts of the Avengers where they were destroying NYC were filmed in Cleveland)
This is maybe not a question that is on-topic, but…
What makes a city a part of the “rust belt revival” vs a “dying rust belt city”?
I ask because my hometown could be described as the latter, and I don’t see anyone claiming it’s part of the former (although there are people trying to make the former happen, we all agree it’s not there yet.) Are we just too small to have art and culture? Too close to New York City to have a separate identity?
I can’t give you an academically supported opinion, but from how I’ve heard the term used in the vernacular I think it’s basically economic upswing vs downswing. Some cities in the area are experiencing more immigration than emigration, and attracting more new businesses in than are leaving, and I think that’s generally what the term is referring to. Cleveland’s cultural identity I think is mostly due to the considerable amount of old money in the area.
Okay, I’m being provocative, I admit. But here’s how I someimes think about it: If I were a time traveler planning a tour of the historical past, where would I go first? Not to someplace quiet, cheap, and out-of-the-way. I’d visit the places where the history I’d heard about was happening at that moment: Athens, Rome, Samarkand, Byzantium, Xi’an, Cordova, Timbuktu — prosperous places with energy and buzz, where I might catch a glimpse of Shakespeare or Caesar or the nearest then-equivalent. Or, if I felt like testing myself, maybe I’d head to some frontier and see what I could do there.
Now, suppose I were a time traveler from the future, visiting now? Where would I go?
The thing is, time travelers from the future is exactly what we are. We hope to have, or become, our future selves, but right now we’re right here. Unfortunately, we are time travelers with amnesia. We don’t know what historians will say about this era that we’ve wound up in. If we’re lucky, we’ll live long enough to be able to reconstruct some of that historical memory . Meanwhile, on the basis of the available evidence, what would a savvy temporal tourist in our shoes do?
The thing is, I don’t think of Minnesota (well, mostly the Twin Cities) as quiet or out-of-the-way. It is definitely cheaper (or so I’ve just learned) but if you’ve read the books of Emma Bull or Steven Brust or Pamela Dean or Patricia Wrede or Caroline Stevermer all those folks and more were in a writers group here in the ’80s that was quite productive and they all live there still! Or there are artists like Prince and Bob Dylan (past) and Atmosphere and POS and my friend’s band (current/future). There are new writers there (Marissa Lingen, though she probably isn’t new anymore), and others as yet undiscovered. There are 3 million people in the metro area! There is lots of energy and buzz. I don’t think you need to go to enormous areas like New York to find energy and buzz.
I like your idea of time travelers from the future. Thinking on where I want to live I made a list of characteristics:
a) Affordable b) middle-to largeish city c) museums d) lots of public transit! I’d rather live where there are 4 seasons, but I’m not particular. Some of the places I think might fit these qualities after grad school: DC, the Twin Cities, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland. Maybe Boston, if I can find somewhere less expensive to live. Maybe even NYC, though I think it may be a bit big.
Thing is, while I’m considering places like NYC and Chicago, I don’t think one, or two, or three cities ought to be the be-all-end-all of where the activity and ideas are. The US (and the world) are so much bigger than that!
I’ve been thinking about this on and off – I think it partly depends on what your priorities are. I’m not sure if I were going back in time that I would head for the big exciting moments. What interests me most about history is what the day-to-day life was like, how people lived, what it sounded like, what it smelled and felt and looked like – the cultural moment – and I feel like you could get that as easily or easier in less eventful places. Plus cheaper means you could spend more time there. I guess it’s kind of like when I’ve visited other countries: going to museums and cathedrals and all is great, but one museum starts to look like another after a while and you don’t really get a sense of what it’s like to live there. What fascinates me are the grocery stores.
I love going to museums in other cities, but I too love grocery stores! I like seeing bits of everyday culture and teasing out what is important to the people who live there.
What have you found in grocery stores you’ve been to? I went to England once, and then went to Spain and Spain had much more British stuff than they had American. They had HP Sauce, which I have not found in an American grocery store yet. (I have found crumpets, though.)
You have a point. If I were really flung back in time, I’d probably spend a long time just staring at anything and everything in utter wonder. After the initial amazement wore off, however, I’d start to think about my itinerary and set priorities. And if I found myself (say) in eastern France in the late 1420s, I wouldn’t just hang around and watch the harvest; I’d go find Joan of Arc.
It would be like Magic Tree House! You would wander around a bit, see what life is like, realize that everyone (or even just a few people) is/are in some way doomed, and then immediately find the single most important person in the area.
Mm. California is cool and does have lots of awesome stuff happening, but you can find awesome stuff happening in places all over, especially Minnesota (or, well, being originally from Minnesota I know there is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the Twin Cities! I like places with at least 200K people, but I’m sure there are people who thrive and enjoy places smaller than that. I’m living somewhere smaller than the Twin Cities right now, and I miss having so much space to explore, but I also like the community here. There are about 250K people around here and when you meet someone with similar interests you tend to know a couple people in common, which is fun to see the interconnections. But I’d love to be around larger museums. Someday I may end up in DC or another big city, or maybe back in MN in the Twin Cities. Or maybe many of those places!
I’ll grant you that the Cities are exciting, but every place is different, right? I like NorCal because you can basically do anything you want. Like to ski? All right, go to Tahoe. Gamble? Vegas. Beach? Half-Moon Bay. A proper beach for swimming? Santa Cruz or SoCal. Hike? There are billions of trails. Also, in Minnesota, the diversity is distinctly lacking; almost everyone (this is probably less true in the Cities) is white with Scandinavian or German descent — and while I have no problem with that, when everyone has a very similar perspective (and especially when you’re a part of a relatively small minority), it gets tiring.
Just my two cents. Minneapolis is nice, and Minnesota is definitely a great place to raise kids, but a bigger city might be worth the high rent for the sheer experience of it all.
Yeah, you have beaches up there I bet! I miss the ocean. But half this stuff isn’t actually in Northern California! All the stuff I love about MN is in MN itself. The lakes (especially Lake Superior!) I love living near great lakes. The boundary waters for canoeing! There are more theatre seats per capita in Minneapolis than any city outside of New York. There are around 5 large museums in the cities area and countless more small ones. There is tons of skiing in the winter! I was on the nordic ski team in high school, and it was a blast! There is a wonderful music scene, and that’s been true for years! (Prince, Bob Dylan)
Are you from a suburb or outstate? Most of the neighborhoods in the cities are diverse. It definitely isn’t perfect. There are areas that are rather white, but for the most part Minneapolis and St. Paul are really diverse. I don’t know much about the suburbs, but personally I don’t know of any reasons to live outside the cities themselves. The public schools in St. Paul (and probably Minneapolis too, I have friends who went to those) had great academics and lots of diversity. They weren’t perfect about connecting the two things (While the school was only 35% white, the IB classes (higher level classes) were probably 80% white).
I really love where I’m from and, when I’m done with grad school, will probably go back there. NorCal is awesome too, but I want to showcase a bit of MN’s awesomeness. NorCal often gets to shine but people pass over the “flyover” states!
full-day interviews begin at 11:15am today, which means that I only had to get up at 6am today to drive to the train station and take the train there. (To be fair I allotted time to do strictly-speaking-unnecessary things like make this post)
wish me luck! I really really want this to go well, I am really excited by this company but I am not sure what to expect of the interviews.
Good luck!
thanks! (I pied your post but then realized that could be taken as support of me, not of you… it’s been a long day.)
Two hours each way on trains, five hours of interviews (with an hour break for lunch). I think they went OK? I really hope I get a job offer, I loved being there.
Highlight of the interview, from my perspective at least: Filled an entire glass wall and door with code with a dry-erase marker. To the point that I was standing on tiptoes/crouching on knees to finish the program. It was very verbose, and a small wall, but I still felt accomplished.
The whole “where is good to live/what priorities do people have about living” conversation is really interesting to me, especially as I’m looking at (probably) my last year living in North Carolina, which also will (again, probably) mark the definite end of my living in Maryland. I grew up in Maryland, but I don’t consider myself as living there anymore, when people now ask me where I’m from I say I live in Asheville, because I’ve spent the most time residing there for the past three years and will continue to do so for another year, which is interesting. My parents still live in Maryland in the house I grew up in and I call going there “home”, but it’s becoming less my personal home and more my parent’s house.
After I graduate I don’t intend to continue living in Asheville, unless I somehow find a job in the area before I graduate, and that’s bittersweet. I really love this area, I adore the mountains, I love Asheville’s culture, and I like being in a place that for being small is very distinct and exciting, but I don’t see many job opportunities that really excite me here, so I’m probably going to end up somewhere pretty far away.
I think in addition to considering what’s already happening in cities and areas, it’s a good thing to consider what you could do to make wherever you are become a happening place. Clearly, that’s harder to do in rural areas where you’re less likely to bump into people who will join you in creating an art movement, a radical writers group, the next incredible music group, or what have you, and clearly many up-and-coming people flock to certain places and it’s good to be aware of that. I still think though that any place can foster genius, and I have a feeling that anywhere people with enough drive go has the capacity to become a place of cultural significance, because culture comes from people. It’s definitely influenced by physical surroundings, but they aren’t (or don’t have to be) prohibitive.
Maybe try making a list of what you want in a place and then seeing where fits? I’d also look into where your friends are going. It is nice to have friends where I am right now, though I’ve also made more, this city is a good place to meet people that I get along with. While it is a bit small for living in long term, the type of people I find here are my type of people and I like that.
(Move heeeere. I’m kind of near a great lake. You could sail! Actually wait, I might be in grad school next year.)
I’ve thought a lot about seeing if I can get hired by Colonial Williamsburg or Jamestown Settlement or Mystic Seaport. I’m probably going to move my stuff into my parent’s garage and go sailing for awhile first though, at least I hope so.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the prospect of buying and living on a boat instead of in a house or apartment.
Also my friends are from so many places it’s not even funny. Ohio might actually be the densest population of friends I’ve got, because of how many MBers live there. And Asheville, but that’s just because that’s a bunch of school friends, and I don’t know that many of them will be staying around once they graduate.
yesssss come to ohio I have a sleeper futon now you can crash on when you’re not on a boat
Ah. As far as concentration of friends goes, my college has a couple cities that lots of people move to after graduation. I moved to one of them too, and now I’m near friends! That is more what I meant. A city everyone moves to rather than a city everyone is from.
Even cities everyone I know moves to, I don’t actually see that happening. I know a lot of transient sort of people who don’t really settle down, and the others I feel like would (or have) settled all over the country.
If you’re ever near me you can come sleep on my couch!
“I grew up in Maryland, but I don’t consider myself as living there anymore, when people now ask me where I’m from I say I live in Asheville, because I’ve spent the most time residing there for the past three years and will continue to do so for another year, which is interesting. My parents still live in Maryland in the house I grew up in and I call going there “homeâ€, but it’s becoming less my personal home and more my parent’s house.”
I find this interesting, because I’ve spent almost all of the last two years here in the Bay Area (including summers), but when people ask me where I’m from, I still say Minnesota. I guess it’s different from college, but I feel like even when I graduate from Stanford and if I continue to live in the Bay Area, I’ll still say I’m “from” Minnesota. Until my parents move, that is; then I have no idea what I’ll say. (Probably still Minnesota?) Did you live in Maryland your entire life?
Among adults, at least, I’ve observed that that people usually consider themselves to be “from” the place where they went to high school. (I don’t know how people like Fern, who never attended high school, acquire their sense of regional identification.)
I think part of my ambiguity about my “from-ness” is that, while I’m deeply attached to the 21 acres my parents live on and the 75 next door that I had free range over because it belonged to my aunt and uncle, I don’t really identify culturally with the area I grew up in. I love the foothills, but I could do without the signs in cow pastures that constantly remind me that most of the folks I grew up around think I’m a horrible sin-monster. My accent is not that of my area, it’s kind of a placeless hybrid of Maryland and Wisconsin, because I spent a lot of time there at my grandparent’s house during summers as a kid. When I went sailing for the first time at the age of 17 I realized just how wanderlust-y I actually am, which conflicts with my nesting tendencies but in a weird way that makes me fond of pretty much everywhere I go. I do usually say “living in North Carolina, originally from Maryland”, because I did spend 19 years living in the the same house, which makes a pretty good sense of regional identity, even if for me “Maryland” really only means about 100 acres and a general kind of geography.
I say that I’m from Ohio even though I grew up in Texas, because saying you’re “from” Texas creates a whole host of cultural assumptions I don’t want to have to deal with.
I say I’m from Washington but I actually emphasize eastern Washington quite frequently. If anything, this would go against avoiding cultural assumptions as Lizzie suggested. I think one reason I do this is because almost everybody here who is from Washington is from Seattle, a Seattle suburb, or another part of western Washington, so I head off the assumption that I am too.
I have a job interview tomorrow, and another one Saturday! One for tutoring a couple of kids after school, and another for cooking for a family on the weekends. I’m really hopeful; I’d like a job other than busking, which is okay for short intervals but gets really cold.
oh my god!!! I just got a job offer from the startup I really wanted to work for!!! It is precisely what I want to be doing, and where I want to be.
oh my god! I am going to be employed somewhere exciting!!!! I am not even religious I am just so happy and at least a little surprised and I don’t know what to say!!!
I’d like to thank MuseBlog. Meetup is about using the internet to foster offline (aka “in the real world”) community, and at the interviews I did mention that one of the reasons I think they are an interesting/cool company is that I grew up using the internet for online community (*cough*), and it’s great to be able to talk with people that share your interests, but it’s hard not seeing them in person.
Ah, the sweet taste of world domination. Congratulations, Dodecahedron!
Flamablamablous!
Dodec, that’s awesome! They’re so lucky to have you.
Congratulations!
Well done, that regular solid!
Well done, that’s amazing!
Thanks everyone!
I am sure there will be many more steps on the path to adulthood, and I am sure that this is a good beginning rather than an end. (Now I just need to get through the rest of my last semester…)
I got invited to an interview for a volunteer program I really, really want! I didn’t think I had much of a chance because they’re only accepting 10 people, and I accidentally turned it my application form 45 minutes past the deadline. I guess my application must have been really good!
Congratulations, and best of luck for the interview! We want to hear how it goes.
Well, now I feel like an Actual Person: I’m sending out resumes like crazy and looking for open intern positions for next summer (it’s so early! but Dropbox, Facebook, and Google are all interviewing people already so I figured I’d jump on the bandwagon) at Bay Area biotech companies. Genentech and 23andMe are high on my list right now, but as they are larger companies I’m emailing smaller companies and startups first — they would probably be more forgiving of mistakes, as they (probably) aren’t receiving hundreds of emails, and more personal.
The goal is to A) actually work at a company doing biomedical computation (or biology, I’m not picky, but I’d prefer to do real-life CS as well), and B) actually have some pocket money left over after the summer rather than spending 3/4 of my salary on housing (like I’ve done the last two summers). Wish me luck!
There’s this new website out there called Pymetrics which is trying to replace self-assessments used by companies for recruiting with “unbiased” reports developed from how you play various neuroscience-based games. The idea is that companies can quantitatively measure aspects of candidates’ cognitive, emotional, and social processing and reach out to/continue the process with ones who are a good fit. I got an email this morning that my college is part of the Beta or something, so I decided to try the games for the heck of it (didn’t take too long and broke up my homework routine).
The results (which are given as percentages) are interesting, though I’m having a little trouble interpreting all of them. Some make sense to me; for example, I have very strong attention control and attention duration, I’m fair-minded, and I am far more internally motivated than sensitive to award. Others were surprising: according to the report, I prefer all kinds of risks (and in fact have a stronger preference for high than for medium than for low risks), I don’t really go above and beyond to get what I want, and I don’t learn from mistakes particularly quickly or well. Actually, now that I think about that last one, in some situations I do tend to make the same mistake multiple times. So maybe that is the advantage of something like this rather than a self-assessment? It still seems like there might be some artifacts of the games that affect the results.
Anyways, I don’t expect to get a lot out of this, since only 12 companies are currently participating, and the three “Featured Companies” (the only ones they tell you about at this point) are Fidelity Investments, Anheuser-Busch Brewing, and Egon Zehnder Management Consulting. And there is no category for Science/Research (closest is “Education”. Which I had a 12% fit on. And according to their description, teachers and professors “do not need strong verbal creativity to excel at their jobs”? Not the good teachers I’ve had.)
I am skeptical of its value. But hey, didn’t take that long.
I tried it too… my results are very funny if you know me, which you do, so here they are:
-Apparently, I am 0% daydreamer/100% attentive. I think this hinges on the tasks begin about 30sek each, because I consider myself almost the opposite.
-I’m 100% ready to go above and beyond to get what I want. Umm… that’s flattering, but for a weekly counter-example, see my homework sheets. I get demotivated and unfocused after the first 3-4 hours if I’m not making good progress and don’t end up finishing. I’m also (still) behind on my thesis. Ironically, the only area I think this might apply to is interpersonal relationships- for example, I never bothered to do my math homework properly until my friends asked to copy off me, after which I tried to make every assignment as perfect as can be because I wanted them to get good grades more than I cared about my own grade. So… I’m ready to go above and beyond for other people, and might leave the couch for myself (if there’s ice cream)?
-I also have a 97% consistent processing speed, which is funny because I have never been consistent at anything I ever remember doing.
On the “Cognitive” tab, I’m also quick at planning, good at attention control and smack-dab in the middle of everything else. Oh, and more of an improviser than a planner (I think it’s because I changed my strategy about halfway through several games). And I work better with no distractions, even though anyone could tell you that I am a distraction.
“Emotional” I really suck at reading people’s faces. But I trust my own emotions vs being swayed my the context (I wonder how they came up with that even though the faces were really… not good). It’s funny because in person I don’t need to think about what a person is feeling, I just know- but most of the photographs left me pretty blank. Oh, and apparently I don’t care if a task has a low or high reward, I just put in the same effort. This one rings true though: I try to consistently keep the same quality math homework even if I hate the subject/teacher or love it, and go to the same effort to fix/manage things at my job, regardless if I’m helping arrogant snotbags or people I actually like because it’s my job. (I do think I’m a bit nicer to the people I don’t hate, though).
“Social” seems a bit contradictory. Tbh, die whole exchange thing seems a bit ridiculous to me, since I recall reading an IRL article about the same type of experiment done in different countries yielding results that depended strongly on the culture.
In short, kinda fun, though I’m a bit skeptical about the science behind it. Does it paint a realistic picture of me? I don’t think so at all, though at least it was fairly flattering.
And another thing: I think the test could very, very easily be tipped any which way just by practicing a little. Some tasks were ridiculously easy to me because they involved math-type logic. I don’t think I necessarily have that much an aptitude for it, but I’m very used to the mindset. Especially since I spent the afternoon writing/editing/tearing my hair out over proofs for my thesis. So those scores don’t surprise me, but I wonder if I’d have scored differently if I’d taken the test right after my motorcycle lesson, which generally has the takeaway “There is no think. There is only do.” For me, it requires a completely different mindset (including paying attention to those funny arrows- my turn signals are literally green & black blinking left/right arrows on the dash). Just a thought.
I like your insights.
Also, during the games that had to do with faces, I was distracted the entire time by thinking about the Muse article from forever ago about reading micro-expressions. “Is this really disgust, or this fear? Which one of those had the raised eyebrows?” Perhaps I’m better at reading faces when you don’t make me think about it.
I thought of that article too! Was that really nine years ago? (Spoiler alert: I wasn’t good at reading micro-expressions either)
SFDP: I got education as I really good match, which surprises me because they never bothered to ask if I hate people. (I do)
On the other hand, that and not being able to read faces would explain a lot of my teachers…
SFTTP: I think the experiment I mentioned was originally by Joe Heinrich (there are articles concerning it on google, but not the one I remember).
I just got an email from an admissions counselor from one of the colleges I applied EA to: she says, among other things: “I hope you know what a gifted writer and storyteller you are. I came home after reading your essays and told my family to remember your name because I truly believe you will be a published author one day.”
guys guys guys I can’t even respond properly to this, but it’s not inconceivable that I’m going to get into college???
SPOILER ALERT!!! Yes, ZNZ, you’re going to get into college, and everything is going to be all right. Until the bunnies show up. Whoops, said too much!
Past ZNZ, I can’t say much with the Time Police watching but your college education is vitally important to our mission. Study hard and download all the waltz music you can, if you know what I’m saying. [TRANSMISSION ENDED]
So I’ve got one acceptance from a grad school now, and I’m getting more excited about going. I’m interested in developing programs that bring education and research into the surrounding community, and that bridge connections between fields of study. If I start grad school this fall, I’ll be graduating in 2018.
By 2020, the year I turn 30, I’d like to be working with museums and finding their place in the world of education. I’d like to be creating innovative programs.
Or working for a design company making cool stuff that changes people’s lives.
Or working in some way to bring education to people, whether it is museums or not.
Or some other field I’ve yet to stumble into that I’ll discover soon.
Things I enjoy:
-museums
-networks
-graph theory
-anthropology
-showing people exciting educational concepts
-learning
-discovering
-historical architecture/architecture across cultures
-writing
-math
-thinking
-making things/hands on projects
-innovating
-math across cultures
-dance
-poetry
I hope that I’m using some of these things every day either starting with grad school, or with whatever I do in the future. I could still say no to grad school, but I’d like to start working towards involving my passions in my life every day.
What do you like? What do you hope to be doing in 2020?
In 2020 I’ll be…. 26? I think I’d like to be a lead engineer on a team within the company by around then. The lead engineer on my team’s been here for about 4-5 years, including internships which I’m assuming (perhaps wrongly?) were completed during undergraduate studies.
Right now the way that seems most possible is if things go my way and they create a team that I’m part of to work on diversity or trust/safety issues (making our site safer for everyone in the diverse user base) – this is a ways out from happening, but I only just started weeks ago, and it’s something I’m passionate about. I can’t expect it to actually happen in five years, anyway, I can’t predict the distant future.
My manager recently asked me where I want to be in 10 years, and while that’s really hard for me to envision as someone who has not been alive for so many decades… I still want to be in a technical role where I can touch code, but also I want to be in a leadership role, one where I have mastery of the relevant parts of my field. Making decisions rather than following, etc.
In 2020 I’ll be 24, I think, and either one or two years out of undergrad depending on whether I’ll need an extra year for my double major or not. Hopefully I will be setting up my own music studio and after-school music program for kids, auditioning for orchestras, playing in ensembles, or possibly studying in conservatory. Maybe some of my poetry will have been published by then. Maybe my voice will start to be heard. Hopefully I’ll have started making my impact on society and be in a place where I can help others.
The future looks like a bright place, from here. I’m glad.
In 2020, I will be 28. Looking at the next five years, I envision I’ll have a Bachelor’s degree, and will possibly be working on a Master’s, in Fine Art or Business, probably not something more academic like Art History. I will continue making art, but I’m not sure in what way it will be connected to my financial life. I see myself living in a part of the New York metropolitan area, but whether that’s Chelsea or the Bronx depends on how I’m making my living. I’d be happy with either, as long as it’s suited to my work. I’d even be happy moving away to a different place, as long as it’s a deliberate move. I’ll have sailed hundreds (or thousands?) of miles offshore, and I’d like to have completed a transatlantic crossing. I will continue to live the avant-garde.
I’ll be 28 in 2020. Hopefully I’ll have gotten to see more of the world and done at least some blue-water sailing. If I’m still sailing, maybe I’ll be mate of a vessel, or I’ll be considering grad school if it looks like that’s a good step. Maybe I’ll have a position somewhere at a living history museum. I’ll hopefully be reenacting a few more time periods at that point too. I’d like to have a living space, whether it’s a house/apartment or a liveaboard boat that I own, and if I have a living space and actually spend enough time there, maybe even have a cat and a garden, and I’d like Eli to be there too.
i got into smith
aaaah!
(official notifications aren’t till the end of march but they chose me as one of the ones they let know early! there was a note handwritten on it referring specifically to the parts of my essay the woman liked!!! i am going to literally explode!!!!!)
Congratulations!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Smith is a great school. Do you think you’ll go there?
Oh wow congratulations, ZNZ!
I only pied before but I DO want to take the time here to say: congrats!! you are great and they are so lucky to have you, they clearly want you to go there lots if they specifically singled you out to welcome you, you will be great ♥
RIGHT-O
(“I’ll go post that now” she says. 2 hours later:)
Since I no longer technically fit the “Dispatches from Collegeland” bill ( ) I suppose this is where I shall come for those more career-related life updates
ANYWAY SO:
Last summer & fall I worked at Cambridge University in England (as I mentioned on the blog a couple times at least), doing research for one of the collaborators that works with my old professor/lab boss/advisor from collegeland. It was a lot like what I did the previous summer/winter term/second semester at Oberlin–isolating plant DNA from tissue samples, purifying it, sending it off for sequencing, and then editing the sequence data once we got it back so it could be compiled into family trees.
At Cambridge, I did a lot of the first half (isolation through preparing for sequencing), but for RNA instead of DNA! which is trickier because it has to be frozen like the whole time, so I got to play with liquid nitrogen even more than last summer. & his lab didn’t have the one fancy piece of equipment the oberlin lab did, so I had to grind plant tissue by hand with a mortar & pestle while keeping it submerged in nitrogen. A very witchy experience!! Grinding up plants in a bubbling, hissing, steaming tiny bowl. fun fun.
I ALSO got to do some harvesting at cambridge! mostly in the city botanical garden, but also three times at Kew gardens, the royal botanical garden outside london. It was fun & it meant I was basically being paid to sit outside and pick flowers,
ANYWAY: I got back at the end of november, and in January applied for one of these Conservation & Land Management internships that are through the Chicago Botanical Garden and various gov departments, like the Bureau of Land Management, the USGS, or the National Park Service.
I heard about the jobs from my old prof/advisor during my senior year at Oberlin, because he was buddies with the lady who runs it at the Chicago Botanical Garden. She came to oberlin & did a talk on them & went to dinner with our lab group, and then I also met her again last summer at the National Botany Conference! Sooooooo I pretty much had a good foot in the door already on these positions lol.
BUT OKAY THE RECENT NEWS THEN: I got one!
I will be doing fieldwork stuff for desert plants in Nevada for the USGS (US Geological Survey)! I specified in my application that I’d really like the opportunity to do more field outdoorsy stuff since so much of my background is labwork & genetics, but what I really hoped for in a bio career was getting to go out and, y’know, see the biology. So this will have lots of camping in the desert doing science!! (and also, a lot of office work and cataloguing/databasing, but still). I may melt/shrivel into a desiccated corpse from the heat, but I think it should be a good experience for me. The position will be for 5 months. I’ll write more about the research itself sometime I am after I am there.
Aka, I move to the suburbs of Vegas in 2 days!! I sitll do not have housing set up!!!! I am trying to find it with the other 3 interns but hoboy hectic packing life now!!!
The camping will be like multi-day/week-long excursions into the Mojave and other areas though. I’m pretty pumped for it if a bit apprehensive, I have gone camping with my family loads but I worry about my knees. I messed them up pretty bad summiting Mount Elbert a few summers ago (they were already twingy, but that really set them off for a long time), and while I have special shoe inserts now/stretches to help, I don’t want to turn into… not a “liability” but I want to be able to do everything I need to without problems, y’know? I think it should be fine, since most of the regions we’ll be in are very flat, and it’s mostly large hills that set off my joint pain. but we’ll see.
so basic plan is, mom & I drive down there on thursday through saturday, mom flies back home on sunday, and I start work on monday. That tuesday through friday I will be in the field, so, it’s sort of a dive-right-in thing! I’m trying to organize a place to stay/keep my things at a b&b type place for the first few weeks until my group gets housing sorted out.
ok that is most of it for me! I will of course not have internet in the desert, but I will probably check in from either the b&b before I go or once I return (as well as, y’know, in the meanwhile.
it’s scary but after living in a whole different country on my own I am not super worried, except for the part where I have to drive myself places instead of biking/walking. and the finding of housing. thankfully one of the other interns seems super on top of things in that regard, I feel kinda bad for slacking on looking for places a bit, but none of the places I did find ended up workable so… we’ll see. and she & other intern arrive later than me & also other intern, so they will be less frantic-pack mode this week x_x
I do like this live-in-a-new-place-for-6-months thing I have done a couple times now though? With Ireland & England. it is a good amount of time to really get to know a place, but not so long I have to actually move there for good/deal with all that trouble. it’s fun. although means I have to apply for things very often which is not so fun but the scenery will be super nice there and I’ll be between lots of great national/state parks and the ocean will only be like FIVE HOURS AWAY (you can tell I’m from the midwest, can’t you) and even though it’s right near vegas the town itself looks very nice!! excpet all my packing experience for leaving for this amount of time has been based off of like, only being able to bring a suitcase & duffle & backpack on a plane, so the ability to take Things is kinda overwhelming. Most of what I’m bringing is camping gear & clothes & some kitchen ware, but I’ve filled a crate with Fun Hobby Things too now. And probably I will bring my squid & cephalopod plushes. I’ll need to strap them into the backseat like people probably, but I have a van, so I think there should be room XD
alright i don’t know how to end this post so here is as good a stopping point as any! ♥
WOW
THAT IS VERY LONG
that did not look nearly so long in the comment box sorry guys!!! some day I will learn to be succinct but it is apparently not this day
I am doomed to never post about my life and then make massive updates too long to read I guess
1) oooh witchy plant fun and picking flowers!
2) That internship sounds like it will be a cool adventure! Looking forward to hearing how it goes!
3) Can we have a picture of your squid and cephalopod plushes strapped into the backseat?
4) I showed some friends here pictures of your mermaid costume, and then added, “oh, and look, she has a giant squid plush too.”
I applied to a dig in Cyprus this summer that said it offered a stipend, but it turns out that was only if you’re a current student and I will have graduated. The cost would be too taxing for the family otherwise.
So I saw a Space Camp brochure and I know they always want alumni to come back as councilors, and I went to the website, but they don’t have the summer positions up yet, just the ones starting in April…
There is a great job at Woods Hole’s Museum doing experiments for kids that is SO close to what I did for Cornell Marine Cooperative in the summer of 2009, but it’s not paid and we don’t know anyone who lives on Cape Cod, so I would have to rent or something and it would be a net loss to the family finances which makes it a no-no unless I can find a way to live on Cape Cod without costing my family money…
Got rejected from UChicago. So. That happened.
Accepted at my favorite of the four grad schools I applied to!
And they’re offering me a graduate assistantship!! I hadn’t gotten any financial aid from the other school I applied to, so I was a little worried. Though one school hasn’t gotten back to me yet…
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention that I have obtained a place to stay for the summer! I didn’t want to live in one of those hacker houses where it’s like 20 people crammed into one house with bunk beds and everything (some of them are all-female but I’m willing to bet that the co-ed ones are mostly guys, which is… not what I want…), so I managed to get a very nice apartment for $1280/month with my own bedroom and bathroom (which is a steal!). I’ll then be able to commute to work using the Caltrain, but my parents are pretty worried about that so they’re bringing my dad’s old car out to California at the beginning of the summer so that I have a backup plan in case the Caltrain breaks down or something.
So, for this summer: apartment + car. I’m really excited (yet nervous to be driving here… drivers here can be mean!).
Called the CEO and negotiated my contract this morning, and they gave me everything I asked for (moving expenses and an extra two weeks of paid vacation).
Way to go!
*sings*
“I need that sweet, sweet, sweet
World domination!”
Hello, everyone! This seems to be the general “adulting” thread, or the closest thing we’ve got, so I’m going to talk about leases.
Advice appreciated, but I’m also just typing this up to organize my thoughts.
I must decide soon whether or not to return to the place I was living last fall. In short: last winter I told the landlady I was leaving instead of staying for spring semester; she offered to let me out of the second half of the lease (which would have kept me paying rent on an empty room until she found a replacement student) in exchange for transferring the second half of the contract to this fall. She recently contacted me to inform me she was altering the deal. Bad news: she’s no longer doing single-semester leases, so I’d have to sign a contract for the whole 2015-16 academic year. Good news: she’s willing to let me out of the contract entirely if this is unacceptable to me — she’ll even refund my security deposit.
The upshot of all this is that I can choose to leave, no strings attached, and take my chances finding another place to live before fall, or I can choose to sign the lease and live there another year.
Last semester, honestly, I was all for bailing ASAP. I even considered leaving for the spring (didn’t, because full year’s lease, and because by the time November-December rolled around I was too stressed even to bother with that). I know it’s student housing and is never going to be luxury accommodations, but $1100/month seems pricey for a room you have to share, even for the Bay Area. ( though it’s still cheaper than a double room in the dorms )
On the other hand, I’ve gotten attached to the place, occasionally leaky refrigerators and all. Absence makes the heart grow fonder…? Maybe, but I really like the community there. It’s one of the few places at college I’ve made good friends — and most of them have stayed there or moved out last semester, so contacting [name of house] expatriates and finding an apartment with them is out of the question. The landlady’s awfully nice, too — she didn’t have to let me out of the lease, and she was already taking a financial hit from all the other people leaving. (Unprecedented in [house] history, apparently.) And by all accounts the guy who replaced my old roommate is cool.
Looking at the pros and cons, I could almost certainly find a place that suits me better, but there are so many unknowns involved in the process of apartment hunting (nightmare!) that it’s tempting to stay in a place I know is good enough.
Re: Leases
Somehow I’ve never signed a lease thus far, although it seems like the very adult thing I ought to be doing by now, but I guess I’ve either been living in institutions with dormish setups, or I’ve been living in super casual couchsurfing scenarios. So I don’t know the specifics of how contracts work, but it seems like you’re doing a good job with pros and cons. Do I have these right?
Reasons to Stay:
good community
apartment hunting is a nightmare
Reasons to Go:
$1100/month is expensive
lease is for the whole year
Why were you going to bail last semester?
Why is contacting expatriates for leads on housing out of the question?
Basically correct.
I was considering bailing last semester mainly because of the cost (especially for a room I’ve got to share). The same reasons I’ve listed under cons. Also the flea infestation, but that was not a problem unique to that house (they showed up all over northside) and the little vermin got exterminated thoroughly, so that’s no longer a concern.
The only expatriates I know from [house] are casual acquaintances who already found an apartment last semester. I don’t think they’re looking for housemates right now.
It’s interesting that you’ve managed to avoid leases so far — I think it’s partly the fact that UCB’s dorms are just so crowded. They don’t guarantee students housing after sophomore year, so you can apply but you’re not certain of getting in. (I didn’t.) I don’t know how normal that is for universities.
Oh, hey! ‘Tis a bit of a non-sequitur, but I didn’t realize you were attending UCB. I’m at Davis, myself, and pop by Berkeley on the regular (more or less). This coming Sunday, in fact.
I think that’s fairly normal for universities… New York City area schools tend to guarantee housing for the first two years, but it’s very expensive (shocking, I know). After that, most people want to move somewhere cheaper and cooler.
I was thinking that most people who I do know with shorter-term apartment leases found them through friends, maybe it’s worthwhile asking if anyone knows anyone.
gim: Really! I’m not there at the moment (semester off, presently living with parents) but I’ll be back in the fall.
Vend: Hm, that figures. I’ve had trouble finding housing through friends because I don’t have a lot of friends at university — only really started finding them last year, in fact — but I’ll see if anyone knows anyone.
semi-regular application update:
11 applications
5 acceptances
2 waitlists
1 rejection
that’s three decisions I’m waiting for! (NYU, Carleton, Swarthmore.)
(I also applied to Barnard but I’m not counting them as one of my applications. It is a Long and ridiculous story. I’m pretty sure they withdrew me from consideration? anyway I like odd numbers better than even ones.)
Swarthmore rejection.
Carleton rejection.
(aaaaaand NYU waitlist. And we’re done.)
So, four acceptances and one waiting list — not bad! What now?
(I did also get waitlisted at Kenyon and Vanderbilt.)
Honestly it’s weird how certain I’m feeling about it now? I’m pretty sure I want to go to Wheaton. (This is the Illinois one, not the Massachusetts one.) They’re giving me money; they have good numbers (rankings, retention rate, student:faculty ratio, etc), a good location, and good programs for the things I’m interested in. It’s not perfect but I’m pretty convinced it’s my best option! It impressed me when I visited and I loved the lecture I heard. & I get the impression that they’re very good to TCKs, which is important to me.
Certain is good! What is TCK? You’re Christian, right? I poked their website and they seem to be a Christian college, which may be good if you are and want to be around other Christians.
A TCK is a third culture kid — basically it’s a fancy term for the children of expats, the thinking being that somebody raised outside their parents’ country of origin (often, as in my case, the kid’s own passport country) is raised not in their parents’ culture (the first culture) or in the culture of the country they live in (the second culture) but in a sort of combination of the two (the third culture). Wheaton, precisely because it’s a Christian school and has strong ties to the missionary community, attracts an unusually large percentage of TCKs and seems super dedicated to helping them transition.
(Wow I sound like a pamphlet. Sorry!)
And, yeah, I am Christian. I’m not entirely sure that I want a Christian college, but recently events have been making me more and more convinced that it would be a good choice for me.
Is it open to non-Christians attending the school? I think it is important to have an openness to people outside the main group that the school is trying to attract. At my small liberal arts school, there were some Christians, but not all of the students were the best at listening to them.
And that is what I thought it might mean, but wasn’t quite sure.
That is a fair point — it’s true that the school isn’t very open to non-Christians. The application includes a testimony requirement, and I believe there is a statement of faith to sign. I doubt that everyone who signs the statement of faith is 100% on it, because that’s just the nature of these things, but there is, like, required chapel and so forth.
And, you know, homogeneity is something that concerns me! There’s like, some diversity of Christian views, but everyone is a Christian. It’s worth considering that I attend a Christian high school currently — and I think in some ways a Christian school would help me transition? But, yeah, it’s worth thinking about.
MBers who have done college applications, how many did you apply to? I have my eye on two, and I’m quite sure I’ll get into at least one, but it seems like I should look for others, if only for the sake if exploring new options. My mom doesn’t want me to apply to lots of colleges (I think she’d be fine if I only ever did two applications) but it seems like even if I have faith in my chances, two baskets is too few to put my eggs in.
Seven, I think. It was eight years ago, though so I don’t quite remember. might have been eight. What two schools are you considering? What are you looking for in schools? Maybe MBers can suggest other schools to look at.
I’m applying to Appalacian State University and UNC Greensboro, both for their music composition programs. I suppose I might also apply to a few more of the state schools, depending on which have composition programs. (I want to stay in NC because in-state tuition.)
I was actually looking at Asheville but their music department only offers Jazz Studies and Production majors, neither of which are composition.
obviously, you should discuss this with your composition teacher (and if you don’t have one you should get one), but if your portfolio is strong enough it might be worth looking out of state. A lot of schools will waive out of state tuition for people they’re interested in (for instance, I know UNT and UT both do that and Oklahoma City also has very generous offers. No clue on how good their composition departments are.) Also, you’re female, right? A lot of departments are really recruiting female composers heavily in an effort to rectify the gender imbalance, and that can often manifest itself in $$$.
Also, you probably know this, but for composition you want to be careful to investigate what sort of stuff the department does. For instance, I doubt you’d be happy in the Oberlin composition department – they do fairly exclusively the stuff gimanator does instead of the stuff you like.
Theoretically St. Olaf College in MN and Lawrence College in WI have major music programs but I don’t know much beyond that. I know more about small liberal arts colleges than music schools.
I know a few people who went to St. Olaf’s and were very happy with it. I’ve visited once or twice myself and can attest that the campus is very pretty. There’s a good coffeeshop downtown, too. Tuition is not cheap, however.
Liberal arts colleges in general are expensive, but usually offer financial aid which makes it much more affordable. Once I got my acceptances, I made sure I could pick a school that was affordable based on the financial aid I got.
St. Olaf and Carleton are both nice. Northfield is a nice place, if quiet, but then if you want the social scene of a big city it’s only 45-minute drive to Minneapolis.
As Oxlin said, the nice thing about schools like St. Olaf and Carleton is that I believe they have both academic and financial aid. Schools like Harvard and Stanford don’t have academic aid, but they do guarantee full financial aid, so even though they’re really expensive, they guarantee that you can afford it (even if it might stretch your limits).
oh, and sorry for the, uh, triple post…
My best friend’s boyfriend is majoring in music composition at U of Hartford and seems to like it. I know several people at Hartt, I think my high school music department maybe was a feeder for them. They seem to not hate it.
Plus I have another close friend majoring in composition I think at Wash U of St. Louis. She says the composition department at Wash U is tiny, though. I think it gave her the best financial aid.
I applied to four for undergrad (got into four) and six for grad (got into 3, waitlisted at one). They were all conservatories both times, though, which might be a different ballgame.
I applied to 4 grad schools. I’ve gotten into two, was denied at one, and one still hasn’t gotten back to me! For my undergrad schools, I got into 4 (one off the waitlist), was waitlisted at 2 (three before I was admitted to one school), and was denied by 1.
I applied to three (two state schools and one private school), but if I had not gotten in to Stanford early I had something like thirteen applications ready to go, to schools including (but not limited to) Caltech, Northwestern, Carleton, University of Virginia, MIT, and Harvard. When I got into Stanford, though, I thought “would I really want to go anywhere else?”, figured I wouldn’t, and ended up not applying to any other private schools.
Mm. Every single school I applied to was a small liberal arts school. 6 were private, one public. I got enough financial aid to have been able to go to any of the four I was accepted at, though I think the best deals over all were at the school I ended up going to (Beloit, a private school) and the public school (University of Minnesota: Morris). The others applied to were, in alphabetical order: Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester, Oberlin, and Reed.
Besides Stanford, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted out of a school, so I was planning to apply to a bunch of different kinds of colleges to see which would stick — I honestly had no idea where I would get in. I think I was also planning on applying to UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Harvey Mudd… and others.
I was really not sure where I would get in. I feel extremely fortunate for having a relatively pain-free application process.
Me too (re: feeling fortunate for having a relatively pain-free app process). I didn’t get all that stressed out. I was really relieved when U of M Morris accepted me in December (they had an earlier deadline) because then I knew that no matter what the others responded I was going to college.
I applied to 9 but that was a lot and I was very sad and stressed a lot of the time, also I did not know what I wanted to do with my life at all. I loved where I ended up going but the application process was p horrible for me.
I applied to 11 (if you count the UCs as one school), and I definitely recommend doing, uh, less than that. I had a core list of 9 or so but then applied pretty much anywhere that waived my application fee, which a lot of them will suddenly do in late December (Swarthmore, Brandeis, Reed, etc.). Keep in mind that you can’t actually reuse most of your essays; it’s a lot of writing and you might be better sticking to just two.
That said, I think you should really look at private out-of-state schools! A lot of the bigger/richer ones have no-loans policies or at least pretty generous need-based financial aid. Based on the few financial aid notices I’ve gotten from colleges so far, it’d be a lot cheaper for me to go to Northwestern or Brandeis than UCLA.
*What was that typing. What I was planning to say is that you might be better sticking to just a few colleges, but I’d suggest more than two.
I barely had to write essays outside of the ones for the common app, actually. Or maybe that is because I used a poem instead for Beloit? I dunno. It was a while ago. 6/7 of my schools did the common app, though. (Now, if only there were a common app for grad school!)
I also tried to pick schools that didn’t require the SAT IIs.
It depends on your state. The UC system is broken, so they might give horrible financial aid — I know for a fact that it would have been cheaper for me to go to the University of Minnesota than… like… almost anywhere else.
I’d say the UC system is more “in the process of breaking,” but then it’s been “in the process of breaking” for decades depending on who you ask.
Whoops, meant to include — I think they’re covering about a third of my total cost, if that’s a useful data point.
Um — eight? But at least four of those were total reach schools I didn’t have a prayer of getting into, which I really just applied to because they were where the Smart People went and my parents were convinced I was a genius. I don’t know that there’s a Right Way to do it and if there is, I am definitely not the person to ask.
Sounds unfortunately similar to my experience. It does make me think, however, that the number of people I’ve encountered who ‘luckily’ fit into a school they knew less about than they realized may actually just reflect that an education comes more down to how we treat the environment we’re in than the actual environment. I think that to be generally positive! Sort of surprising that so many focus on it the other way around.
I do feel the environment can be a big factor – my personal experience being that I knew less about the school I chose at first than I thought I did, and it turned out that their environment was to be abusive of me when my priorities were different than theirs.
(That’s in the past, though I am not terribly inclined to let the past lie, because I think visibility matters, would have mattered to me, will matter to those who might see this and be going through something similar.)
I got into my university early decision, but I was going to apply to nine. I think that was three reach, one reach-target, two target, three safety? I’m at one of my reach schools right now.
I think UNCG is the place to go for music composition, probably, although that info is coming solely from Having Been A Band Kid In High School In NC, and I don’t know much about App’s program. People love UNCA so it couldn’t hurt to apply there also–I’d advocate for applying to more schools rather than fewer in case something doesn’t pan out. Then you’d have a tough decision about waiting a year and reapplying vs. going to somewhere with a program you weren’t nuts about and transferring, but you would at least have options.
Also, can confirm that Northfield MN is a nice place. My sister is a freshman at Carleton right now and loves it. (Warning, though–the trimester schedule can lead to some very, very intense and exhausting terms.)
I’d recommend looking into out-of-state also, but it’s a very common thing for NC kids to stay in-state for tuition reasons and our state schools are great so I don’t think you can go wrong. Still, maybe worth looking into? Worst case scenario there is that you get in somewhere and don’t get enough aid and end up in-state, which isn’t a bad situation.
Yep, I’m definitely looking at UNCG as one of my top choices. I’ve talked with some of the professors there and gone to a lot of events outside of their summer music camps. UNCA looks awesome but it doesn’t have my major.
I think I will apply to some out of state colleges, after seeing all the replies. I figure it can’t hurt, and there are a few my mom wants me to tour (if only because she wants the excuse to visit her friends in the area).
I think I applied to 7 (3 “reach”-ish schools and 4 safeties with earlier scholarship deadlines) at the end of the day. I had an initial list of 12 or 13, but I got into my early action school, and there were a lot of schools I didn’t feel the need to apply to after that.
I applied to ten. I got into four, rejected from two, and waitlisted at the rest.
I applied to twelve, technically! Don’t apply to that many colleges. Or if you do, figure out your top choices as early as possible and apply to them early. I’d suggest more than two, but too many is just asking for stress. (Especially if you have extra essays, especially if you don’t have a clear ranking in your head of where you want to go, especially if they have differing requirements you’ll have to keep track of.)
+1 for “more than two” advice – when transferring I only applied to two schools, and my parents were very critical of that. “what if you don’t get into either and have to go to the community college, which is beneath you” (?????? this elitism is nonsensical mom, I know you went to an Ivy but that doesn’t mean I have to) I got into both schools, anyway, but it was stress I didn’t need.
I think I applied to seven schools the first time, accepted to six, rejected from one (not that I’m bitter, MIT, I didn’t like you anyway). I felt that was about the right number. If you’re mentally healthy (unlike me at the time of apps, either time) and can take on the stress of a couple more applications, it might be a good idea. I’d say less than ten, though.
My dad was so upset about me applying to a state school as a safety. Community college wasn’t even discussed. Don’t you love how parents become egomaniacs on their kids’ behalf?
^^^
“Why wouldn’t you get into Yale?”
On the other hand…
Me: Mom, I think I’m going to apply to Stanford early, the guidance counselor at my school said I might get in.
Mom: Okay. You know you’re not going to get in, right? But sure, if that’s what you want. Be sure to prepare other applications.
[week before results come out]
Mom: Are you doing other applications? Your Stanford rejection will be coming soon! Haha, just kidding. You might get in. But probably not.
Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect people to have a perfectly accurate assessment of their children’s capabilities and potential. But they could at least make an effort not to be jerks about it.
(I suppose application season is stressful for everyone.)
I mean, in retrospect I think it was good — if you set the bar low, then that’s less disappointment, right? And I did end up finishing the other 12+ applications I planned on doing, so I had the luxury of picking and choosing which ones I sent in (which turned out to be 0, lol). So it turned out all right.
It’s been 7+ years since I did my undergrad apps, so my memory is more than a bit fuzzy.
I know I applied to at least 3 schools, and I think all of them were technically state schools, and they may have been the only ones I applied to. I remember I didn’t have a dream school, I never really had a good answer when people would ask me where I wanted to go to college. I didn’t really care, beyond the fact that I figured I would do my undergrad at a university with a vet school, because I thought that would increase my odds of getting into vet school there (which, in reality, I don’t think does).
I was extremely lackadaisical when it came to investigating schools. I’m pretty sure my mom did *all* of my school research for me, since it was approaching that time, and I really hadn’t done any, and she was panicking on my behalf.
I applied to Washington State, because it was the nearest college with a veterinary school, and then I applied to the university I am currently attending, as well as Purdue University, because they both had early admissions programs for veterinary medicine, where if you got accepted into those programs, you were guaranteed a spot in vet school if you continued to meet the requirements laid out in the program. So I applied to them at my mom’s behest, and their early vet school admission programs.
I wasn’t worried about getting accepted to the schools as a whole (they were state schools, I perhaps erroneously felt that state schools really don’t reject people, unless you have unbelievably terrible grades), but had very little expectation of getting into the early admit vet school programs.
Both the Purdue and my current Univeristy called me for interviews for their programs, I flew down to interview at my current Uni in April my senior year for the program, was convinced I bombed the interview, and a couple/few weeks/possibly months later, found out I got accepted tot he program. Purdue’s interview period was not until I think July, and I decided juggling the two schools most of the summer, until I would interview at Purdue/find out my results was too stressful, so I declined to interview at Purdue, and took the easy option of going with the bird in hand.
tl;dr: I’m a really bad person to answer this question, I dont’ think I applied to many schools, and the only reason I am where I am right now, is thanks to my mother kicking my a** in gear and non stop nagging me.
Ugh, I feel like I’m changing my mind at least hourly. How will I know when I’ve got it right? (I guess I do keep coming back to Wheaton? I’m just always second-guessing that decision.)
Sometimes it helps to flip a coin. Decide that one side represents Wheaton, another side represents somewhere else that you’re considering. If you flip the coin, see what shows up, and have a reaction of “yes! that’s what I wanted!” or “no! I wanted the other side!” then you’ll have some more info. If you’re deciding between more than two, try a die.
you don’t have to get it right on the first try! If you pick one and it turns out to be a place you actually aren’t as happy as you wanted to be, you can always transfer to someplace different. Also make sure the place you choose has the most going for it, not just in terms of academics–are there extracurriculars that excite you? Do you think the people there fit with your idea of good people to hang out with? Do the dining halls serve good food? How long are you stuck on campus/with a meal plan? some people prefer places that guarantee housing all four years, and others would rather get out as soon as possible. Asking yourself questions like that and maybe laying out a table or a pros and cons list might help you at least rationalize your decisions so you don’t feel like you’re second-guessing so much?
Tomorrow I leave for Illinois, to visit Knox College. Thursday and Friday I spend touring campus and trying to figure out whether it’s as good as it looks on paper.
This week will determine the course of the rest of my life. One of the most important decisions in my life, and this is the week I make it.
I’m terrified. I’m excited. I don’t know what I am.
I should be packing or sleeping and I can’t seem to do either. Because This Is It.
I want to love this college so badly and I don’t know if I will and in less than twenty four hours I will or at least I’ll know more and aaaahhh. Ahhh.
*sounds of hyperventilation*
And the emotional roller coaster continues.
Chicago was amazing! I found the Bean without evenknowing where it was really, with half-remembered names of parks and guesses. I was grinning the entire time we were there.
Then we spent three hours on a train and I guess I crashed and when we got to Knox I was half in tears before ten minutes were up, because I had to think this place was perfect, and it wasn’t what I imagined and I had to come away dancing and singing its praises.
Hopefully I’m more emotionally stable now? I guess I’m about to find out.
Relax! It’s harder to know how you actually feel if you feel it has to be perfect.
This is good advice and I wish I could get myself to accept it.
On the plus side, today went much better. I was slightly less of an emotional basketcase after a full night’s sleep, and taking a tour was much better than wandering around feeling out-of-place.
Tomorrow they’re doing the full Admitted Students Day, so we’ll see how that goes.
At this point I’m about 90% certain I am going here but I will be insanely nervous about that decision forever.
Yeah. Actually relaxing is much harder than knowing you should relax. I’m also nervous about grad school decisions.
I hope Admitted Students Day goes well!
Feeling much better after a night of trivia & people watching. I know I like the people here, at least some of them, and that was my main concern.
There’s less riding on tomorrow, so I’m looking forwards to it more.
I had similar feelings when I visited my (eventual) college. I put myself under a lot of pressure to find it perfect, not least because I knew it was the school closest to where my boyfriend would be going and so as to be absolutely sure I wasn’t making important life decisions based on him, this school had to be absolutely perfect for me to pick it over other schools. *facepalm* (This was a stressful time.) The thing is, I actually had a bad overnight experience here…my host lived in a very high-energy hall but I was ready to crash, it was a weekend night and they offered to take me out drinking, and it was just not a good experience for me. I was really stressed afterwards because that seemed to make my decision even harder.
In the end, of course, I decided other positive factors outweighed my bad overnight, came here, and have been very happy all in all.
I don’t know if any of that is relevant to what you’re going through, and I don’t want to minimize the stress of making important life decisions at all, just know that a place doesn’t have to be perfect when you’re putting a lot of pressure on it to be perfect if it seems generally like a good fit for you! Liking the people, which you note, is really important too.
I hope Admitted Students Day is going well.
So. I’m probably about to accept the offer of a grad school. They’ve offered me an assistantship that covers 1/4 of my tuition and gives me a stipend. Not really sure how common that is in museum studies programs/if that is the best result? I got accepted by one other program, but wasn’t given financial aid. I’ve already declined them because the deadline to respond was yesterday. Thoughts? I really do want to go to grad school and I’m very excited about this program I’d be starting but hate loans in general.
Do you know anyone who has been in a similar position?
What does the cost of loans look like over the long term? How much would you pay per month, and what kind of job would you have? Are you okay paying X per month while you make X per month?
have you already tried to appeal for more aid? It’s a little tricky because if you’ve already declined the other program you can’t outright bargain, but it still might be worth contacting them like “Hey, I’d really love to go here, but I need x amount of money because this, this, and this.” Most schools have an appeals process. You might not get the amount that you want, but it’s possible they’d bump it up some.
I mean I can likely afford it as is. I’ll have to take out loans, but not tons in loans. Some fellow museum friends say bargaining is possible but that just feels really awkward and I don’t know how to do it.
So apparently now tuition to Stanford is free if your family makes less than $125 a year? Assuming you get in, of course.
Yep! They greatly expanded the financial aid program. Stanford has a great financial aid package in general. Also that’s $125K.
Oh yeah. Forgot to add those zeros.
man that would be the lamest change ever if it were $125. “Hey, we’re making you tuition free! Even though you probably already qualified and you’re probably too busy trying to figure out how to eat and find somewhere to sleep to think about applying for college.”
“(PS You still have to pay the application fee)”
Guess who’s going to pursue a double major? Yep, that’s me.
Guess who’s terrified? Yep, that’s me.
(Writing and biology)
Watch out, Rosanne! En’s after your job!
And why not? Someone will have to do it when Rosanne retires.
Getting closer and closer to graduation, and I’ve been juggling more preparing-for-after-school-life things with homework things lately. I’m apartment hunting (it’s pretty official: I’m moving to NYC right after graduation and staying there until September, when I move to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to join a different boat, and from there, who knows what), and since I’m working on an exhibit for an archaeological site that might be transferred to a local museum after it’s displayed on campus, I’m trying to consolidate the (really badly organized) paper trail for whoever inherits the project after me. The fiddler who’ll be my replacement in the band is already playing with us, so that’s taken care of. The people I live with are all taking care of their own housing stuff, which will shift when I’m gone.
It’s hard to believe that in a month and a half I’ll be gone from here.
So, Knox College Adventure summary!
– I didn’t see much of downtown Chicago, and even less of the rest of it, but Millenium Park was very cool and I think I could spend quite a bit more time in the area quite happily.
-Trains are also cool but the charm started to dim when my mother reached levels of enthusiasm for them normally only found in five-year-old boys. We were alone on the trip. She likes to talk. It got old.
– I posted a bit above about my first day actually in Galesburg, visiting the college. It was lovely but not what I imagined, and I was emotionally fragile. It was a bad combination.
– The second visit to campus went much better. I took a tour (they have a lovely dorm arrangement and a gorgeous library), ate some food and people-watched. The last activity gave me some cause for concern, because I didn’t see hardly any signs of nerdy students, in t-shirts or anything, and I that’s the crowd I tend to fit into the best.
– I came back in the evening for a trivia night thing, met another prospective student, and got a better grasp of what the students were like. My concerns over nerdy students were somewhat alleviated by the conversations I heard.
– Admitted Student Day was fantastic. I attended two classes, one panel thingy, and did some other activities. The most unexpected but probably the best part was after the first class I tried to attend was canceled, a girl working in the admissions office for the day realized that the three of us who’d tried to go were all interested in their Creative Writing program, which she was in, so she sat down to talk to us about it, and for the next hour or more, she rambled about anything and everything we asked about. It was great.
– The classes were also very cool. One of them only a single student showed up for, plus three prospective students. So the professor could spend time talking to the newcomers and catching us up on what was going on and so forth, which was good, because what they were doing was reading a play in the original ancient Greek.
– One of the best parts of the day was the end, where a bunch of clubs had set up booths and I got to wander from table to table talking to everyone. They were all very cool.
– As a sort of nerdiness litmust test, I wore a t-shirt with Gandalf on it that day. It was complimented sufficiently to remove any fears that I’d be the nerdiest there.
– Trivia time: one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held at Knox College. I am therefore full of anecdotes about this. I have also now sat in a chair that Lincoln also sat in (it’s been reupholstered since then, though).
I haven’t technically commited to Knox, yet, but… It was amazing.
I have been re-evaluating my life prospects and goals a lot lately, so I thought I’d put this out there: what fields are in need of good writers?
My impression is that traditional journalism and publishing are dying, and academia is not so much “already dead” as “a shambling corpse prolonging its unholy existence by feeding on the blood of the living.” I’m interested to know where people who can write and communicate well are in demand, and where they can do the most good.
Public relations, POSOC. That’s where the writing jobs are and are likely to remain, I’m afraid. With luck, you can be a cheerleader for something you actually believe in and do some good that way.
That’s not really new, though: creative writing has always been a struggle. Look at the biographies of your favorite novelists and poets, and you might be surprised to find out how they supported themselves.
Ah, heck, now I have to figure out what I believe in. How inconvenient.
I have done that: by and large, it’s broken down to “held a completely different job” or “married someone with a different job.” Neil Gaiman wrote somewhere that even moderately successful writers don’t make much money, as a rule — that was eye-opening. I knew people like him and J. K. Rowling were outliers, of course, and I knew a lot of aspiring artists struggle. I had just overestimated how stable and secure it was near the middle of the bell curve.
Not believing in anything would give you a competitive advantage as a hired gun, of course.
Seriously, the ability to write well is a useful (and surprisingly rare) skill. It will come in handy in many jobs not specifically labeled “writer.”
Most of my fiction-writer friends are in academia, one way or another — mostly teaching in writing programs, as it turns out.
Robert: It probably would surprise me how rare that skill is — I’ve been surrounding myself with other people who are uncommonly good at it for quite some time.
And those are the very jobs I’m considering more carefully. It seems like most of them require skills and knowledge relevant to whatever you’re writing about. I do not yet know how best to acquire that knowledge.
Rebecca: Hm! MFA programs and the like, yes? I think we discussed those last year, and you advised me not to go in straight out of undergrad — I think that’s still excellent advice. Academia is observably not good for me. And even disregarding mental health (which I’m no longer willing to do), I feel increasingly that my lack of experience with the so-called “real world” is a handicap, both as a writer and as a person.
(“observably not good for me” is, of course, the mother of all overgeneralizations. The UC Berkeley undergraduate English program is not representative of all academia. However, I’ve read enough about people dropping out a year away from their Ph.D.s, diminishing job markets, and adjunct professors on poverty wages to know that my caution is not unjustified.)
Don’t let an obsession with specialized skills and knowledge trip you up at the starting gate. Acquiring skills and knowledge is easy. It’s also surprisingly pleasant outside an academic degree program.
My first editorial job was editing translations of papers originally published in Russian geological journals. When I applied, I knew next to nothing about geology. But I knew a LOT about Russian, and I promised to take night classes to get up to speed. I got the job (being able to string ideas together coherently gives you an edge in the self-marketing department, too), found some intro geology classes at a nearby community college, and had a great time while learning a lot, improvising all the while.
Eventually I wound up studying geosciences in graduate school, and now they’re part of my editorial beat at Science — all because I had studied Russian in high school and college. Time and chance happeneth to all things. I’m confident that something similar, but utterly different, will happen to you. Just don’t sell yourself short.
Huh. I was wondering how you spun a BS in math into a science writing/editing career. I know a good grasp of statistics is helpful in understanding practically any science, but still.
This is at least encouraging because one of the skills I’m in the process of acquiring is a command of Spanish.
Spanish is bound to open some doors. It’s not that unusual a skill, but in my experience, almost everything I’ve learned has come in handy at one time or another. It’s good to have a big bag of tricks.
I took my required units of Spanish in high school and didn’t go any farther because I didn’t want to bother taking any more in high school. (I didn’t like it because I had other hard classes and couldn’t bothered to be study/the class was early in the morning/the guy next to me kept trying to get me to go out with him etc).
I like the idea of knowing two languages and plan to take more Spanish in college. What other languages should I take? Right now I put Spanish closed captions on Netflix in hopes I won’t completely forget what I know of the language.
given the current demographic shift the US is experiencing, I wouldn’t be surprised if writers who can translate from Spanish find themselves in great demand in the next 10-15 years
I’d guess POSOC is more likely to be speaking Spanish than translating it. There are going to be a lot of truly bilingual people around, and translation algorithms are getting better all the time. We’ll see how his story unfolds.
I’m learning it partly because I used to be very good at it; partly because my fallback plan after college is going overseas to teach English somewhere, maybe Spain; partly because it’s useful around California (though who knows how long I’ll still be in California?). Plus I’d like to be one of those truly bilingual people eventually.
senior year of college starts tomorrow aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh
Good luck!
So I applied to two schools, both in-state with good programs. I’ve visited both several times and like both of them. I have great chances of getting into the universities themselves, and I’m optimistic about getting into both music programs, especially at the rate my audition prep is going. The schools are UNC-Greensboro and App State. I can say that, right?
Everyone else I know is applying to way more than that. I figure I should apply to a few more, but every school I look at is either too much of a party school for me to watnt to go there, or it’s too close to home, or it doesn’t have my major, or all three! People keep asking me why I don’t apply to Chapel Hill. I know it’s a really good school, and that as an in state applicant I could probably get in, and it’s a gorgeous campus, and it has a reputable music program, but… ugh. I just Don’t want to. how do people find 13 different schools they want to go to and find the time to apply to all of them, even with common app? it’s so exhausting.
I know out-of-state private schools are an option and there can be scholarship money involved but honestly there are so many options there and applying to stretch schools would take…. so much effort…..
also my parents want me to apply for honors programs at both of the schools I applied to and I just found out that for App State that requires writing three essays so. sigh.
What is the major you’re looking for? Perhaps we can let you know of other schools you might want to consider. Good luck!
Don’t sell yourself short with the applications, is my advice! People get into schools they think are reaches (and get rejected from some they think will be easy) quite often. Also your major could change, so maybe look at schools that have good programs in multiple departments, or more general “music” degrees that still involve a bit of music composition? She said, having applied for and committed to one major without any options for outside courses, before even starting college- but uh, I do regret that a little bit.
Private schools do sometimes give a lot more financial aid than state schools, though- or at least they did in my experience! I think they often take into account the cost of living more than state schools do, and also tend to have more money floating around/better policies about student loans. Good luck!
I have a friend majoring in music (not composition though) at UNC-CH that I could pass on questions to if you want.
Ugh. So, currently still living with the parents. I’ve looked at pictures of numerous houses online in the general (very narrow) geographic region of interest: ie, no further of a commute to work than I already have living with my parents. And this past week (once with mom, and again today with dad), have looked at 2 houses that based on my online looking were not too far away/potentially affordable/looked decent in pics (and based on an external drive by, were still in the running).
They’re very similar houses, but one is slightly larger, every so slightly more property–but no privacy, it’s right in the middle of a subdivision, surrounded on all sides by houses, with only a chain link fence and a subdivision road for buffer. The other house: slightly smaller, slightly less property, at the end of a culdesac with vegetation on 2 sides.
The interior of the larger, less appealing locale house is a bit more lived in/dingy looking. The interior of the smaller more appealing locale house is much more well kempt. One fewer bathroom, the master bath is also open to the main hallway, slightly smaller bedrooms, smaller master closet. And we can’t figure out how to make the dining room lights (which are part of a ceiling fan fixture–the fan works) and the master bedroom lights turn on (also part of a ceiling fan)
Gut reaction: I like the slightly smaller, but nicer property house better, and honestly kind of decided I wanted it just after driving by it.
but. I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that things are moving too fast, that I’ve only looked at 2 houses in person (albeit many more online, at least in the narrow area that I’d prefer to live), and that I should take several months/look at dozens of houses before I commit, because it’s a huge monetary (and time) commitment. Simultaneously, I don’t want this possibility to slip away, the house to get sold while I waver indecisively.
And there’s the part of me that while living with my parents full time again is going far more peacefully than I could have ever imagined, I still want to be out sooner rather than later, to have the “true” freedom that you get living by yourself even though I know this means a much more significant financial drain. And I can’t help but worry that maybe my desire to want to buy this house is based not on a liking and desire for this house, but more the liking and desire of the concept of having a house of my own? Is it this house I want, or is it just that I want *a* house, anywhere that is my own, and not with my parents.
And it’s a huge commitment to make for the wrong reasons, and just ugh.
I don’t know what to do. I’m really not sure I’m ready to be an adult. When did I stop being a child? I still feel like I’m just a kid, playing at being an adult, faking my way through life, putting on a false front that I know what I’m doing when in reality, inside of me is a terrified child who is in way, way, way over her head.
Plus side: I’ve actually finally gotten accustomed to being called Dr. [last name], I don’t have any coworkers I dislike [and apparently I get along really well per my boss w/ everyone, so I guess that’s good], and I’m very slowly gaining confidence in some of my abilities. But I’m starting seeing emergency type appointments soon, and that scares the *beep* out of me, because that leaves me completely out of my element. Vomiting/diarrhea cases are the worst, because you almost never have a good answer for people, because there is so much that can cause that, and dermatology cases. I don’t enjoy derm cases at all. And cats. I cringe everytime I see cats on my schedule for an appointment. It’s not that I have a problem with cats in general, but I feel like a much larger percentage of cats are unhappy to be at the vets, and so many of them that translates into razor sharp claws and bared teeth, and they are so so so difficult to restrain when they are unhappy, b/c you’ve got almost a couple dozen razor blades slashing every which way, and bared fangs lunging, and just *shudder*.
But I digress. And I need to go to bed. It’s midnight, and that’s honestly about the latest I should really stay up on a worknight. Because I feel I should actually be awake for work. You know, because that’s the responsible thing to do (unlike school where whatever, it’s okay if you’re barely awake all day).
Adulting is hard.
This GAPA saith: Forget the big house. If the small house makes you happy and you can afford it, go for it.
Ugh ugh ugh. Someone else is potentially interested in MY house. My real estate agent said that a different realtor is “showing the property this evening to a very interested client”.
And my hormones already have me on an emotional roller coaster from the stress of trying to get prequalified for a stupid home loan when I have no idea what I’m doing. And my realtor had said I need to be prequalified before I can make an offer, and I want to make an offer, because I want this house, and I don’t want someone else who is more prepared and *already* has prequalified, to steal it out from under my nose.
And the soonest any financial institution *may* have approved me to prequalify, is going to be next week sometime, and just ugh ugh ugh. This is too stressful. I am sitting here staring at my laptop on the verge of tears and just ugh. I can’t even go and have a good cry cuddled in my bed w/ my cat, because my dad will be home from work soon.
This seems like something the GAPAs might have ideas about: I got a form from my work for setting up salary reduction for a 403(b). Do any of you have opinions about the validity of that vs other retirement accounts? I think the orchestra matches contributions to the 403(b) up to a certain amount, for what it’s worth.
Lizzie,
I have had a 403(b) since I was your age. My advice: contribute as much as you’re allowed to (or as much as you can), and take full advantage of the matching contributions. Set up an IRA as well, if you can. Saving at this point will pay off big time later.
Question: What is a 403(b)? My mom has made me set up a Roth IRA after my summer internship, but I don’t really know how it works except that I can’t touch the money until I retire.
You can’t withdraw the money, but you can change how it’s invested.
403(b)s are for employees of nonprofit organizations; 401(k)s are their for-profit equivalents. They’re a fringe benefit that allows employees to invest money, often with matching contributions from the employer, and deduct the amount invested from the taxable part of their salaries. The money may be invested in either mutual funds or annuities.
Huh. Since I’ll likely be in non-profits after graduating I guess that means I’ll have a small sum in a 401(k) and then more (eventually) in a 403(b).
Aha, I see, thank you! Follow-up question: What is the difference between a mutual fund and an annuity?
Kokonilly,
In a mutual fund, you (and lots of other people) provide money, which the fund’s managers use to buy various investments (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. — funds come in many different flavors). The value of the fund depends on how well the investments perform. With an annuity, you provide money and get a guaranteed amount back. The guarantee makes it more predictable than a mutual fund, but the return is usually much lower in the long run. For that reason, annuities tend to be more popular with people who don’t have a “long run,” such as those approaching retirement.
Ah! I see, that makes a lot of sense, thanks.
Robert / other GAPAs,
You probably don’t have recent experience on this but just in case, do you have any strong feelings about Vanguard or Fidelity?
I don’t know much about Fidelity, but Vanguard’s low-fee model is very attractive. What are you thinking about? An index fund?
probably mostly stocks / bonds? I’m not really sure, need to do some more reading up (also decide what percentage I want to deposit).
Good luck! I don’t know anything about 403(b)s. I think I have a 401(k) from my old job, but now I have to transfer the money over Somewhere Else as it isn’t enough to keep at the Company that Mysteriously Has My Money since I don’t work at my old job anymore and they don’t want to hold less than a certain amount.
Tl;Dr: I don’t understand number(letter)s either.
Update #1: I applied to attend (not present at) this conference in Tampa next week, and apparently I got it so I’m going to Tampa next week?? It all happened very suddenly.
Update #2: I have gotten two people to write rec letters for me to apply to the coterminal master’s program in biomedical informatics here at Stanford; and when I say I “got them” to write it I mean I emailed one and he responded “absolutely” and when I talked to the other the conversation went “Hey, can you write a rec le–” “Yes, of course!”
So that’s good. I have to write my own essay now about why I like biomedical informatics, which shouldn’t be too bad. The app is due Nov 1.
Update #3: I am starting to go to career fairs and give people resumes and stuff and it’s all very stressful and kind of terrible, honestly. I might just go back to my summer internship company to avoid all this nonsense, which I would be very happy with (though getting offers from other companies would give me collateral in negotiating, which I hear is an important thing). (Also, the very idea of showing up to a career fair in formal attire to impress people is repulsive to me. I’m not sure why.)
So. Houses. After going through the unpleasant process of prequalifying for a loan (which seemed to take WAY longer than in actually did), I made an offer on the house. And then one counter offer and a counter counter offer by me, and things are rolling. Which is simultaneously exciting and terrifying, because I’m buying a house, and that’s kind of the most money I’ve ever spent, and it’s a huge commitment, and I think I’m maybe a little terrified of commitment, but I’m buying a house?!
I mean, there’s a whole ton of things to be done between now and when everything is finalized, so there’s so so so many things that can and probably will go wrong, but still.
But seriously I dont’ think I ever fully realized just how long and arduous a process home ownership is. I’ve got to get all the loan info finished, have to get the house appraised (and hope the appraisal comes in near the purchase price so that I can get a loan for the necessary amount of $$$), have to get a home inspection done, and then, eventually, finally, if everything goes smoothly and there are no snags hit (which I’ve been assured, there will be snags, closing never happens on schedule), I might, just might, be official owner of the house as soon as Thanksgiving time?
Which holy cake just whoa. Yup. Definitely a weird combo of exciting and terrifying.
https : / / xkcd.com / 905 /
I highly recommend the book Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World as reading for this WD102 course. The premise is that it is possible to do good for the world and make a good living doing it. It’s full of tips for overcoming your fears, reflecting on what’s important for you, believing in yourself, knowing you’re part of a community of people who are transforming and rebuilding the world. It’s exactly the book I needed at this moment in my life, to be honest.
The authors later went on to create the 50 Ways to Get a Job site which I mentioned above.
SFTP
The reflection and writing I did while reading Making Good made me realize that three areas where I really care about making a positive difference are (in no order):
* Environment: cleaning up, stopping harm before it happens, protecting biodiversity, living in sustainable ways
* Education: improving quality, increasing access to and equity of opportunities, broadening availability of dual-immersion language education, creativity in education, and informal education spaces
* Community-building (current term I’m using to capture something pretty intangible): improving the ways in which people communicate, collaborate, form community, and live together.
Doing significant good in any of those areas would make my work meaningful to me. Maybe more areas too that I haven’t thought of yet; identifying these gives me somewhere to start looking, though.
I also realized that I’m interested in systemic change. One quote I loved was, “Our job is not to give people fish, it’s not to teach them how to fish, it’s to build new and better fishing industries.” (Bill Drayton) I want to leave the world better than I found it in a way that lasts after me and ripples out from me.
Some skills I identified in a different exercise as things I’m good at and love doing are problem-solving/puzzles, organizing/planning/tracking to see a defined goal through from beginning to end, making things, and presenting to groups.
I’m feeling really drawn to big, happening cities all of a sudden (much different than I’ve ever felt before) – particularly Los Angeles for personal reasons, but also San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Portland, Seattle, NYC.
My current major goal is finding a summer experience that lets me get involved in something meaningful, build skills, and work with cool people from whom I can learn a lot (peers and bosses alike). Does anyone have general suggestions for looking for jobs? Specific ideas about opportunities/organizations/companies I should look into? People I should talk with? Hard-earned wisdom?
I’m traveling and can’t say much more than that your goals and aspirations are thoroughly Kokonspiratorial.
Cat’s Meow,
So: you enjoy solving problems, want to make the world a better place, and are drawn to big cities, preferably on the west coast. The challenges are to find places to do that, there, and talk them into letting you join them for a while. Fortunately, there are plenty of options.
First off, you could take a broad-spectrum approach by joining a political campaign. Next summer will offer the best opportunity for several years.
Or you could start by identifying some specific problems.
Wildest idea first. Los Angeles has recurrent, predictable problems with wildfires. If you’re in good physical shape and want to help save lives and houses, you could join a seasonal fire crew. In most places, that means the Forest Service; L.A. might have its own municipal fire fighters. You’d learn teamwork, see how real, high-stakes problems are solved under intense time pressure, and maybe get systemic ideas for solving similar problems in other places. And I guarantee that, later, your résumé would jump out of the stack. Prospective bosses would interview you out of sheer curiosity. (It pays to be daring and different, as I can attest from experience on both sides of the résumé stack.)
If dirt and danger aren’t your thing, you could see about internships with an organization like GeoHazards International in Menlo Park, California. It’s based in Silicon Valley and does interesting, worthwhile work around the world.
Or how about refugees? Resettlement is an urgent problem right now, and it’s certain to grow throughout your lifetime as climate change drives more and more people to higher latitudes. The International Rescue Committee has a big office in Los Angeles; you could see what opportunities it offers and help specific people solve the problems of making their way in a foreign country — while honing your intercultural and linguistic skills. (Many other organizations do similar work.)
Those are just a few possibilities that spring to mind.
tl; dr Bad news: the world is a mess. Good news: there’s lots of work cleaning up messes. Caveat: it’s not always glamorous.
Thank you for the ideas, Robert. Refugee resettlement with the IRC is a really interesting idea. I checked their website, and the LA Reception and Placement Program Intern has a surprising “Armenian or Farsi required” requirement, but I’ll look into that and their other opportunities further. My younger brother just got back from earthquake-related work in Nepal, so I sent him some articles from the GeoHazards International website. I’m not as interested in that right now.
While as much danger as with fire crews isn’t my thing either (more okay with dirt, though), your point about daring and different résumé items is well-taken.
You’re probably looking for something more wonkish, but I wanted to cover as many bases as possible. I’m sure other MBers also have good ideas to offer.
I don’t know. Fire fighting does have qualities like variety and active action that appeal to me more than pure wonkishness, so you’re actually on the right track there. It’s the life-threatening nature of the work that makes me uneasy. (A rising junior from my brother’s future college was killed fighting Washington’s forest fires last summer.)
“De human world, it’s a mess.”
This is an unusual post, but I’m just going to throw this out there for college-aged MBers: the year-old Center for Collaborative Creativity at my college is looking to hire interns for this summer. The job will be a combination of creating and running summer programming for the students on campus and doing a self-directed project of some kind. One of the other interns will be me. The co-directors put out an informal invitation to students from other colleges which they know have creativity initiatives, and I’m judging from my experience there that MuseBloggers would be a good fit for the culture of collaborative creativity, too. Recent grads, they’re also looking for a post-bacc or two.
tl;dr: please come work with me this summer at an awesome internship in an awesome place! That would be the coolest thing ever!
I’ve been working full-time since the start of June at the campus Center for Collaborative Creativity that I mentioned in my last post. It’s such a good fit for me. Getting asked about 100,000 times while I was home in May what I want to do after I graduate, forcing me to say something but without a real commitment, also let me try out a bunch of different ways of articulating what I think I want to do. Finally I realized that somewhere in the sphere of creative ways of educating/educating to produce creative people is that intersection I’ve been looking for of what I like, what I’m good at, and what the world needs. I mean, I’ve had incredible and often non-traditional school experiences (dual-immersion elementary, project-based middle, traditional high school, online but highly interactive high school courses), most of the extracurriculars I’ve done have in one way or another been “education” (including coaching and museum interpreting), and I think education is vastly important. Plus I’ve now got all of this experience building up the creativity initiative at my college. It feels so obvious in retrospect that I should be looking there for opportunities, so I feel really good moving forward!
The most immediate step on my horizon is that I really think I ought to ask for a raise/promotion for the next school year. I’ve been involved with the initiative longer than almost anybody else, including the full-time staff: our new director arrived just a week ago. I took on a lot more informal and formal leadership responsibilities last spring. Over the summer I have done even more to run the place during leadership gaps during the director transition. The new director knows about all this and is clearly impressed. I’m definitely doing more than minimum wage work, even CA minimum wage at $10/hour. So, basically, I feel like every article I’ve ever read that says, “Women! Have confidence and negotiate your salary when you deserve it!” is speaking to me right now.
My main questions are when, how, and how much I should ask for. The most awkward-feeling part is that the center is so new and full-time staff are still being hired that I don’t know exactly where I should fall out in that. But that’s also an opportunity, to define my own perfect position rather than follow those who have come before. I really trust the administrative assistant at the center to give good advice and have good insights on all of those questions, so I think I’m going to talk with her this week.
Cat’s Meow,
I sent your post to a friend of mine who is in the museum business. Here are her thoughts:
I would approach it from the standpoint of wanting more responsibility, to grow in her job (it sounds like she’s doing that already but it hasn’t been acknowledged). Given where she is in her professional life, she is better focused on getting the experience and having it in her resume that an extra dollar an hour (of course, that’s easy for me to say since after 27 years, I’m making a comfortable–mind you, not lavish–salary). In our place, there are formal job descriptions and ways to apply for new jobs but it sounds like she is working at a smaller center and they may be looser.
I’m happy to chat with her by email or whatever. It’s interesting that I resisted the “educator” label for a long time, preferring science writer, producer, science communication titles. But, really, in our setting that’s what we do if not explicitly in a classroom we do want to help people learn about the world. It sounds like she’s pretty certain where she wants to go which is pretty impressive in someone as young as she is.
Oh, I’m not certain at all where I want to go – I’ve just gotten good advice from you and other mentors to chase potential interests wholeheartedly and be comfortable defining passions retrospectively instead of up front.
Thank you so much to your friend for her advice. The part about focusing on getting more experience and responsibility really resonates with me, since that will carry me further overall. I would love to chat more with her if you could put us in touch!
I’m supposed to have a feedback meeting with my boss this week, since my last day for the summer is Thursday, so I plan to bring it up then in the broader context of my role and responsibilities next year. I talked with the administrative assistant and she says she thinks a position that better reflects the responsibilities I’m already taking on is a great idea and that she’ll support me 100%.