Best place to go to university in USA? (Esp. California)

[partygirluk]

What is so bad about Princeton?

[Flushed]

1) Let me put it this way, I live with two post-docs. One of them recently got his Ph.D. in Boston (yeah, the land of hellish climate and women of questionable attractiveness) and he WANTS TO GO BACK! He takes trips there at least every other week (there's motivation considering that it's 6 hour trip). Bear in mind, this is an attractive, well-adjusted, social guy; he has friends here. He just hates it. The other morning he complained that he woke up before his alarm at 7 AM b/c out of sheer boredom he fell asleep at 11. We had a respectful moment of silence.


2) Seriously, Princeton is a pretty, small town and not bad for undergraduates. Undergrads have their own social structure and their own bar-type places (i.e. eating clubs). Grad students/post-docs, on the other hand, have only one real bar to go to. And it's pretty bad. There's only about five restaurants and they get old quickly; the closest big movie theater is a drive (you better have a car). There are no museums, opera houses, galleries, or any other cultural venues to speak of. The cost of living is close to that of Boston or another city. Atlantic City is an hour and a half away (too far to drive on a regular basis if you're going to do legitimate work here); NYC is a little over an hour by train (also a bit far). The climate is unpredictable and often uncomfortable (too humid in the summer and cold/windy in the winter).

Bottom line: if you care about your quality of life as much as you do about academics, Princeton is not the right choice for graduate/post graduate work. I'm guilty of academic arrogance as much as the next person, but it's not worth throwing six years of your life away being miserable; especially if being unhappy interferes with your ability to work.

- Natasha
If you have specific questions, I'm all ears.

[J.A.Sucker]

If you're going to a top-flight grad school looking to find mad hotties, you're in for a world of hurt. That's not to say that you can't find hot chicks out there, but your priorities are shifted in grad school a lot from undergrad. Stanford is a great place to be - great weather, poker nearby, good food, and a great golf course. I have been here awhile and I like it still.

Harvard and MIT are both cold. I'd go to Harvard over MIT in a landslide. The kids at MIT are just miserable. I've never really been sure why, but it seems to be ingrained in the culture there that you just basically go suicidal for your entire time there in grad school. Harvard's slightly better, but not by much. Stanford has just as much pressure, but the grad students can have a little fun. Maybe it's the palm trees.

Berkeley is a great place, too. I'd also consider going there. The town is a college town, unlike Palo Alto which isn't. The chicks are hotter in Berkeley than in Palo Alto, too, and there's more good, cheap food to be found. In fact, nothing's cheap in Palo Alto.

UCLA is the nuts. It's one of the few schools where I'd take a prof job. Westwood has more tight, tanned, ladies than you can find outside of Cheetah's. In fact, some probably dance at Cheetah's - paying their way through school [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

UCSD is in La Jolla, and the weather there is second to none. I think you get discount greens fees at Torrey Pines, and this course is probably a bit better than the Stanford course (though close). La Jolla is still cheaper to live than Palo Alto, and it's right on the damned beach. If you like fish tacos, go here.

Basically, the problem is that you often have to have the decisions made for you. Apply to all of these places and see where you get in. Then, visit the places. For Chem, they flew you out to all of them and wined and dined you. For Econ, I don't know if they do this. You'll know where you want to go. I chose Stanford over every place in the world, but you may have different priorities.

[Flushed]

[ QUOTE ]
For Chem, they flew you out to all of them and wined and dined you. For Econ, I don't know if they do this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any program that does not fly you out and wine & dine you is suspect. If they don't have enough funding to fly you out then they don't have enough funding, period. Of course, this depends on where you live: if you're outside the continental US, then they may not fly you out.

[Sponger15SB]

So you're interested in economics?

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/nobel/
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]


Seriously though, since you're looking at schools like Stanford, UCLA, Berkely, and San Diego, we're much too dumb for you.

Any of those choices would be fine, however I'd avoid schools in LA cause living in LA sucks

[partygirluk]

Thanks Natasha. Have you ever been to Cambridge UK? Your description of Princeton sounds somewhat similar, and in Cambridge some people see it as a small city with 2 crappy nightclubs full of boffins, and others see it as a quaint and wonderful place. Is it the same for Princeton?

Thanks.

[RicktheRuler]

UCLA or Berkeley. Stay away from the East Coast if you like nice people, good food, good weather etc.

Youre welcome.

[partygirluk]

Seriously, it should be expected that they fly me from London to California, put me up and pay my expenses? This would be a 4 figure outlay for them. I don't think this is considered normal practice over here. I was planning a trip to Vegas and California to check the places out, now sounds like it is unnecessary.

Wow.

[J.A.Sucker]

Like I said originally, it depends. First of all, you need to be ACCEPTED. Second, this policy depends on the department. For sciences, you are a slave to them for five to six years. Thus, they have a huge incentive to get you there and to make sure you want to stay there. For non-sciences, they don't even pay you, so they may not care. For econ, I don't know. If you don't have anyone to ask this question to, then you don't have a good enough reference to get you in, anyway. Seriously.

As for the total cost, it may be capped at some number for the airline ticket (700 bucks, maybe), and for foreign students they may ask you to coordinate several schools, which isn't really that hard. I know I spent tons of money on those trips - great bottles of booze, top-notch hotels (though you may want to stay with students, and I did this too), and top restaurants. It was a good time, plus you really learn about the schools, prof's and people. Very worthwhile.

[Michael Davis]

Sucker, your info on this stuff is usually spot on, but we studying humanities do get paid, just less.

-Michael